Ninite Alternative
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@Dashrender said:
That being said if I can't get management to give me the $300/yr I would want to use Chocolately at the full network level - it seems that it's more geared toward the end user use. So scripts will be needed to PSExec Chocolately on the machines and get reports.
Actually the opposite. It is geared towards enterprise UNIX admins and away from end users. It is effectively a Windows version of how the entire rest of the industry has handled software for decades and lacking it has been one of the key "mocking points" about how archaic and cumbersome Windows is.
Ninite with a GUI on the clients is end user focused. Chocolatey moves back to the command line so that you can install with interrupting the user, without a heavyweight network connection, etc.
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I'm a complete scripting NOOB... so a little help in what is needed would be cool.
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@Dashrender said:
I'm a complete scripting NOOB... so a little help in what is needed would be cool.
What do you want to accomplish? I provided install and update examples above.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
I'm a complete scripting NOOB... so a little help in what is needed would be cool.
What do you want to accomplish? I provided install and update examples above.
for a single workstation, what do you do with that for the entire network?
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@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
I'm a complete scripting NOOB... so a little help in what is needed would be cool.
What do you want to accomplish? I provided install and update examples above.
for a single workstation, what do you do with that for the entire network?
The most likely thing that you would do is put in a scheduled job for updates so that each machine updates itself weekly or so. That's the super easy way. Takes no special skills.
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A really simple script approach would be like this:
for %i in (desktop1 desktop2 desktop3) do PsExec.exe \%i cup all
That one line is all that you need. Just fill in the list of machines that you want to update in the paranthesis and you are good to go. You can make it more advanced by filling in that portion from a text file or whatever. But the basics are very simple. It's not really scripting, just a single statement that does everything. This command is the "cup all" which is the universal update command. All packages would be updated on every system.
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Similarly if you wanted to install the Java Runtime (JRE) on every machine you would do this command:
for %i in (desktop1 desktop2 desktop3) do PsExec.exe \%i cinst javaruntime
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I presume you have to provide credentials assuming your user is not a local admin.?
Ive never used psexecute before.
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@Dashrender said:
I presume you have to provide credentials assuming your user is not a local admin.?
Ive never used psexecute before.
psexec is awesome. If you are on a domain it, just works.
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I made an article about Chocolatey too: http://www.scottalanmiller.com/windows/2014/03/15/open-source-command-line-package-management-tool/
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And I wrote a guide to automating Chocolatey with PsExec: http://www.scottalanmiller.com/windows/2014/03/15/automating-chocolatey-with-psexec/
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Can you use chocolaty in a workgroup environment where there is a standard local user & common password?
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Can you set the chocolatey program to use a specific network share for the repository, instead of connecting to the same website on every machine? This would be really useful on networks behind firewalls with no internet access or really poor internet connectivity.
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Would it be possible to get Chocolatey to output it's results to a log file or somehow report on the progress / result of the update / install? It would be good to know for sure what programs got updated, or more importantly if any of the updates failed.
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@JustRob said:
Can you use chocolaty in a workgroup environment where there is a standard local user & common password?
Chocolatey doesn't use AD. It just needs local admin privileges. Any admin account can be used.
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@JustRob said:
Can you set the chocolatey program to use a specific network share for the repository, instead of connecting to the same website on every machine? This would be really useful on networks behind firewalls with no internet access or really poor internet connectivity.
That's something that I would have to research. But I would be surprised if you can't. Although you can definitely use a proxy to do that.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@JustRob said:
Can you use chocolaty in a workgroup environment where there is a standard local user & common password?
Chocolatey doesn't use AD. It just needs local admin privileges. Any admin account can be used.
So do you have to be logged in with the same account on the machine you are pushing the updates from / running the remote command from (source) as is used on the machine you are updating (target)? Or can you specify in the update command on your source machine what credentials to use on the target machine(s)?
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@scottalanmiller said:
@JustRob said:
Can you set the chocolatey program to use a specific network share for the repository, instead of connecting to the same website on every machine? This would be really useful on networks behind firewalls with no internet access or really poor internet connectivity.
That's something that I would have to research. But I would be surprised if you can't. Although you can definitely use a proxy to do that.
You can set up a proxy to take requests for files from a website and pull them from a file share instead?
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@JustRob said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@JustRob said:
Can you set the chocolatey program to use a specific network share for the repository, instead of connecting to the same website on every machine? This would be really useful on networks behind firewalls with no internet access or really poor internet connectivity.
That's something that I would have to research. But I would be surprised if you can't. Although you can definitely use a proxy to do that.
You can set up a proxy to take requests for files from a website and pull them from a file share instead?
The proxy itself would be the file share in that case. A proxy like squid would allow that, yes.
