Anyone Attempting Deploying Printers through SaltStack?
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I've created a Salt execution module before, and it wasn't that hard, anyone with a bit of Python experience should be able to make one. I imagine a state module wouldn't be much harder.
- Here is how I would tackle this:
- Take a look at how you would do this in powershell
- Use Process Monitor so see anything behind the scenes that is being done
- If Powershell isn't enough, reverse engineer lgpo
- I haven't done this before so I don't know if there might be a better way to do this other than
- Process Monitor
- Look at the Salt source code to see what interfaces they provide to interacting with Windows already
- Create module
- Take a look at how you would do this in powershell
- Here is how I would tackle this:
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@flaxking that thought had crossed my mind, and as we use Salt broadly with many clients, it could easily make sense to invest the time in that.
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@obsolesce said in Anyone Attempting Deploying Printers through SaltStack?:
@scottalanmiller said in Anyone Attempting Deploying Printers through SaltStack?:
That's pretty much it. Windows desktops (and laptops) and we'd like to try using Salt to deploy printers instead of going through traditional Group Policy or login scripts. Anyone attempted this or know the recommended approach?
I was thinking of looking in to this because there are some issues where, through Group Policy Preferences, Windows machines do not get printers/copiers deployed to them (via GP) unless the printer's driver had been previously installed.
It was only an issue on Win10 machines where the logged in user was not a local admin.
SS is good at getting stuff done, so I had thought about looking in to this a while ago, but haven't yet.
Did the issue with GPP and Windows 10 have to do with the point to print issue and the driver not being a packaged driver?
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@scottalanmiller This makes me miss my old job. I was working on replacing all of our GPOs with Salt and printer deployment was coming up. However, as a solo SMB IT employee, I had an insane amount of time on my hands.
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@flaxking said in Anyone Attempting Deploying Printers through SaltStack?:
@scottalanmiller This makes me miss my old job. I was working on replacing all of our GPOs with Salt and printer deployment was coming up. However, as a solo SMB IT employee, I had an insane amount of time on my hands.
We're more the opposite - needing to invest in good management to ensure we are not too busy later.
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@flaxking said in Anyone Attempting Deploying Printers through SaltStack?:
@scottalanmiller This makes me miss my old job. I was working on replacing all of our GPOs with Salt and printer deployment was coming up. However, as a solo SMB IT employee, I had an insane amount of time on my hands.
I am a solo SMB employee and have no time on my hands.
We just hired about 10 people in the last 4 weeks and 2 start in a week and 2 more possibly the week after. No real time to do anything more than setup new employees. -
@wrx7m said in Anyone Attempting Deploying Printers through SaltStack?:
@flaxking said in Anyone Attempting Deploying Printers through SaltStack?:
@scottalanmiller This makes me miss my old job. I was working on replacing all of our GPOs with Salt and printer deployment was coming up. However, as a solo SMB IT employee, I had an insane amount of time on my hands.
I am a solo SMB employee and have no time on my hands.
We just hired about 10 people in the last 4 weeks and 2 start in a week and 2 more possibly the week after. No real time to do anything more than setup new employees.What makes new employee setup so labour intensive at your SMB?
I used to get notified of new employees on their start day :ogre:
On my to-do list was to make a way for HR to handle most of what was required with new employees. A lot of stuff required pairs more nicely with HR than with IT, IT just need to provide a friendly abstraction on top of automation for them to use.
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@flaxking said in Anyone Attempting Deploying Printers through SaltStack?:
@wrx7m said in Anyone Attempting Deploying Printers through SaltStack?:
@flaxking said in Anyone Attempting Deploying Printers through SaltStack?:
@scottalanmiller This makes me miss my old job. I was working on replacing all of our GPOs with Salt and printer deployment was coming up. However, as a solo SMB IT employee, I had an insane amount of time on my hands.
I am a solo SMB employee and have no time on my hands.
We just hired about 10 people in the last 4 weeks and 2 start in a week and 2 more possibly the week after. No real time to do anything more than setup new employees.What makes new employee setup so labour intensive at your SMB?
We onboard something like 5-6 per day, seven days a week, for just a single client
10 in four weeks would be a vacation. We had five leave just since noon today! -
@wrx7m said in Anyone Attempting Deploying Printers through SaltStack?:
@flaxking said in Anyone Attempting Deploying Printers through SaltStack?:
@scottalanmiller This makes me miss my old job. I was working on replacing all of our GPOs with Salt and printer deployment was coming up. However, as a solo SMB IT employee, I had an insane amount of time on my hands.
I am a solo SMB employee and have no time on my hands.
We just hired about 10 people in the last 4 weeks and 2 start in a week and 2 more possibly the week after. No real time to do anything more than setup new employees.HR and Workday handles most of the onboarding and the rest is automated.
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@black3dynamite said in Anyone Attempting Deploying Printers through SaltStack?:
@wrx7m said in Anyone Attempting Deploying Printers through SaltStack?:
@flaxking said in Anyone Attempting Deploying Printers through SaltStack?:
@scottalanmiller This makes me miss my old job. I was working on replacing all of our GPOs with Salt and printer deployment was coming up. However, as a solo SMB IT employee, I had an insane amount of time on my hands.
I am a solo SMB employee and have no time on my hands.
We just hired about 10 people in the last 4 weeks and 2 start in a week and 2 more possibly the week after. No real time to do anything more than setup new employees.HR and Workday handles most of the onboarding and the rest is automated.
I am talking about account creation and computer setup, installation etc.
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@wrx7m said in Anyone Attempting Deploying Printers through SaltStack?:
@black3dynamite said in Anyone Attempting Deploying Printers through SaltStack?:
@wrx7m said in Anyone Attempting Deploying Printers through SaltStack?:
@flaxking said in Anyone Attempting Deploying Printers through SaltStack?:
@scottalanmiller This makes me miss my old job. I was working on replacing all of our GPOs with Salt and printer deployment was coming up. However, as a solo SMB IT employee, I had an insane amount of time on my hands.
I am a solo SMB employee and have no time on my hands.
We just hired about 10 people in the last 4 weeks and 2 start in a week and 2 more possibly the week after. No real time to do anything more than setup new employees.HR and Workday handles most of the onboarding and the rest is automated.
I am talking about account creation and computer setup, installation etc.
I can't think of any business case for why IT has to handle account setup. Most of the time it's just a technology deficiency as to why HR doesn't have the ability to do so.
98% of the time computer setup and software installation can be completely automated. Even when the software support says it can't. So you might be dealing with the 2%, or you could be bogged down with so much technical debt that you haven't been able to dedicate the cycle required in order to automate
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On and Offboarding is very labor intensive and if it's not that's possibly because your team may have streamlined the experience. However, every business by far isn't streamlined. That is a fact.
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@krisleslie said in Anyone Attempting Deploying Printers through SaltStack?:
On and Offboarding is very labor intensive and if it's not that's possibly because your team may have streamlined the experience. However, every business by far isn't streamlined. That is a fact.
Sometimes this is an advantage of an outside firm, they have more clout, or just a fresh set of eyes, to evaluate the process.
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@scottalanmiller I totally agree, but every company can't afford an outside firm on top of an internal person/team at same time in the scale I'm in.
I have often looked at using a 3rd party for not only the finance and HR. Get's expensive and some functions don't get performed with a 3rd party which leaves you still to fill a gap or take it upon yourself.
Totally doable, in 5 and maybe 10 man companies but when you get hit with dose of growth and you can't effectively scale, it comes back to haunt.
#ghostlybooooooo -
@scottalanmiller said in Anyone Attempting Deploying Printers through SaltStack?:
@krisleslie said in Anyone Attempting Deploying Printers through SaltStack?:
On and Offboarding is very labor intensive and if it's not that's possibly because your team may have streamlined the experience. However, every business by far isn't streamlined. That is a fact.
Sometimes this is an advantage of an outside firm, they have more clout, or just a fresh set of eyes, to evaluate the process.
This is so frustrating... and sadly so damned true.
Internal resources are frequently ignored because the people in charge forget that they are paying the internal resources... but with an outside firm - that's always first and foremost in their mind, and if they are paying, well by god we should be doing what they say because otherwise why in the world are we paying them?
Now if only they applied that same logic to the employees they employ. -
@krisleslie said in Anyone Attempting Deploying Printers through SaltStack?:
@scottalanmiller I totally agree, but every company can't afford an outside firm on top of an internal person/team at same time in the scale I'm in.
I have often looked at using a 3rd party for not only the finance and HR. Get's expensive and some functions don't get performed with a 3rd party which leaves you still to fill a gap or take it upon yourself.
Totally doable, in 5 and maybe 10 man companies but when you get hit with dose of growth and you can't effectively scale, it comes back to haunt.
#ghostlyboooooooSee, this is where Scott will tell you that hiring internally was the crazy thing. You can get the same functionality of an internal hire with an MSP/ITSP type hire if you want it. I.e. you hire Joe's MSP to put full time tech in your company. When that tech (John) takes vacation, you're not left without a person because Joe's puts a different tech (Jeremy) in that tech's place while John's gone, all at the same price. John needs extra help for a week or two, Joe's sends over Jeremy to help John (bills according) and when done, Jeremy doesn't show up any more.
This flexibility can cost a bit more (frankly I have no idea how much more), but from the postings around these parts, some seem to think the cost would be pretty small.
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@krisleslie said in Anyone Attempting Deploying Printers through SaltStack?:
@scottalanmiller I totally agree, but every company can't afford an outside firm on top of an internal person/team at same time in the scale I'm in.
I don't agree with this. The best decision for any company is always affordable, that's how IT and business work. Whatever is best is always within reach, because what is best is determined by including the whole picture.
Outside firms, when used properly, lower the cost of IT, not raise it. So who can't afford to "spend less"?
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@scottalanmiller said in Anyone Attempting Deploying Printers through SaltStack?:
, when used properly,
See, this is the part that almost never happens. I have to fight this perception all the time.
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@krisleslie said in Anyone Attempting Deploying Printers through SaltStack?:
I have often looked at using a 3rd party for not only the finance and HR. Get's expensive and some functions don't get performed with a 3rd party which leaves you still to fill a gap or take it upon yourself.
These are not statements that come from outsourcing, they come from vendor selection.
Here is a trick to determining if an outsourcing statement is true - reverse it and can it still be sometimes true? If so, the original thought is incorrect. So let's reverse yours...
"We've often looked at using internal resources not only for finance and HR. It gets expensive and some functions don't get performance with in house resources which leave you still to fill a gap or take it upon yourself."
See how that works? Clearly this can be just as true with employees as with outsourced resources. So the issue is not with it being outsourced or not, but with going with the wrong vendor and/or hiring the wrong staffer.
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@dashrender said in Anyone Attempting Deploying Printers through SaltStack?:
Internal resources are frequently ignored because the people in charge forget that they are paying the internal resources... but with an outside firm - that's always first and foremost in their mind, and if they are paying, well by god we should be doing what they say because otherwise why in the world are we paying them?
Remembering that they cost money isn't the issue. That management thinks that how much they pay determines the value of advice is the issue.
Example: if you volunteered your work would it actually make it less valuable? Of course not. The ends are the ends.
The issue is similar to management confusing the ends for the means.
