@scottalanmiller said in Software restriction policy on Workgroup network ?:

@openit said in Software restriction policy on Workgroup network ?:

@scottalanmiller said in Software restriction policy on Workgroup network ?:

@openit said in Software restriction policy on Workgroup network ?:

Whether these Salt/Ansible servers are available for Windows and/or Linux ?

My Linux install guide is like two commands to fully set up Salt on Linux, it's that simple. Would be much harder on Windows and no value to it.

I understand why to run on Linux. How about clients ? do we have any agent installer to get control on Windows machines (windows 7-10) ? or it's an agent-less controller ?

Salt is agent based and has an agent for Windows. Ansible is agentless and I've not used it on Windows.

Great.

Also, can you provide the Salt install guide ?

I guess, it will be on CentOS 7?

@scottalanmiller said in Software restriction policy on Workgroup network ?:

@openit said in Software restriction policy on Workgroup network ?:

Whether these Salt/Ansible servers are available for Windows and/or Linux ?

My Linux install guide is like two commands to fully set up Salt on Linux, it's that simple. Would be much harder on Windows and no value to it.

I understand why to run on Linux. How about clients ? do we have any agent installer to get control on Windows machines (windows 7-10) ? or it's an agent-less controller ?

@scottalanmiller said in Software restriction policy on Workgroup network ?:

@openit said in Software restriction policy on Workgroup network ?:

@scottalanmiller said in Software restriction policy on Workgroup network ?:

@openit said in Software restriction policy on Workgroup network ?:

The actual reason why our all pcs not under domain is, "some PC OSes are Home Editions". And I was not willing to bring half pcs to domain and leave remaining under Workgroup, until we buy Pro Versions.

Then you are in a good position to seriously consider never having a domain.

This made me feel Happy !

I always felt bad, when I was not able to do easily due to lack of Domain.

Domains are the panacea that people think that they are. Microsoft's marketing has been very powerful in the SMB. AD Domains are certainly nice and powerful and well integrated into Windows, but we don't use them at NTG for a reason - too much work, too little benefit. We had it and we own the licensing for it, but we removed it and are happier without it. I've worked in companies with hundreds of people not on domains and it worked great. There are lots of cases where they just don't make sense.

Great feedback (with case study )

@scottalanmiller said in Software restriction policy on Workgroup network ?:

@openit said in Software restriction policy on Workgroup network ?:

Is Salt/Ansible are alternative kind of software for PDQ Deploy ?

Because I tried to use PDQ Deploy Free, I wondered it was asking for Domain Credentials to setup, so I left it.

Um, sort of. PDQ Deploy is a very simple (but really good) software deployment tool. Salt and Ansible (along with Chef, Puppet, cfEngine and others) are full DevOps style Change Management State Machines. With Salt, as an example, you could manage your servers and never log into a server (or desktop) ever again. Just "define its state" in Salt and let Salt do all of the work. You can do "anything" from Salt.

This reminds me following article I have read it years ago

12 reasons why every linux system admin should be lazy

@scottalanmiller said in Software restriction policy on Workgroup network ?:

@openit said in Software restriction policy on Workgroup network ?:

I was expecting of some app to do it easily or configuring in one pc and importing if it's possible.

That's why I told you about Salt.

Ok great. I will have a look.

@scottalanmiller said in Software restriction policy on Workgroup network ?:

@openit said in Software restriction policy on Workgroup network ?:

The actual reason why our all pcs not under domain is, "some PC OSes are Home Editions". And I was not willing to bring half pcs to domain and leave remaining under Workgroup, until we buy Pro Versions.

Then you are in a good position to seriously consider never having a domain. Domains can be great, they can also be expensive and are very hard to remove once you implement them. If you look at tools like Salt, you can pretty easily go with a free alternative that is vastly more powerful (in most ways) than a domain while not locking you into anything.

Or if you feel a domain is required, you can do it from the start using Linux and never become encumbered by the enormous "Windows tax".

Is Salt/Ansible are alternative kind of software for PDQ Deploy ?

Because I tried to use PDQ Deploy Free, I wondered it was asking for Domain Credentials to setup, so I left it.

@scottalanmiller said in Software restriction policy on Workgroup network ?:

@openit said in Software restriction policy on Workgroup network ?:

The actual reason why our all pcs not under domain is, "some PC OSes are Home Editions". And I was not willing to bring half pcs to domain and leave remaining under Workgroup, until we buy Pro Versions.

Then you are in a good position to seriously consider never having a domain.

This made me feel Happy !

I always felt bad, when I was not able to do easily due to lack of Domain.

@scottalanmiller said in Software restriction policy on Workgroup network ?:

@openit said in Software restriction policy on Workgroup network ?:

I think, both Ansible and Salt are commercial products to do things easily, but it adds cost.

No, both are completely free. Both also offer commercial support, but you don't need this at all.

That's great. So I need to setup Salt/Ansible as a server and install agents on all Windows PCs and push/control with Salt/Ansible server ?

Whether these Salt/Ansible servers are available for Windows and/or Linux ?

@scottalanmiller said in Software restriction policy on Workgroup network ?:

@openit said in Software restriction policy on Workgroup network ?:

@scottalanmiller said in Software restriction policy on Workgroup network ?:

push it out with PowerShell

I am not familiar with PowerShell. Are you talking about creating PS script for the SRP and run on each machine or push it remotely for all machines ?

This would be a great place to start experimenting with it, where the risk is zero and there is a small but important project with a clear goal. Perfect for starting scripting.

PowerShell can be run locally, but the power and point of it is to be run remotely. The tooling is called PowerShell Remoting.

Sure, I will learn PS.

I was expecting of some app to do it easily or configuring in one pc and importing if it's possible. Now if I use Power Shell (local or remote), I need to google for code/script and run....

Also, just wondering to know, once we setup SRP, what impact will be while installing legitimate software ? (here we have given users a standard account and separate administrator account for admin to install something)

@scottalanmiller said in Software restriction policy on Workgroup network ?:

control it even more effectively than a domain does using a tool like Ansible or Salt.

I think, both Ansible and Salt are commercial products to do things easily, but it adds cost. If I am going to spend for this reason, instead we may spend on getting Pro versions to make all workstations under Domain

The actual reason why our all pcs not under domain is, "some PC OSes are Home Editions". And I was not willing to bring half pcs to domain and leave remaining under Workgroup, until we buy Pro Versions.

@scottalanmiller said in Software restriction policy on Workgroup network ?:

push it out with PowerShell

I am not familiar with PowerShell. Are you talking about creating PS script for the SRP and run on each machine or push it remotely for all machines ?

@scottalanmiller said in Software restriction policy on Workgroup network ?:

Group Policy is not limited to domains. You can use Group Policy manually at each machine

Yeah, I know we can do it manually on each pc (hopefully for home edition OSes also ?)

My intention is for any application or script, which can be done easily instead of editing Group Policy and do modifications at each pc.

Hello all,

As you know Software restriction policy is one of the best practice to prevent ransomware kind of virus. Well, if all nodes on network are under domain, it can be done with GPO easily.

As of now we are in Workgroup network with OSes Windows 7-10.

So there is any third party tool or script to run on all pcs for SRP ?

Probably we can push script/app with ESET ERA6 to all pcs ? if possible, otherwise, we will do it manually.

Thanks for suggestions !

Gonna get one and test it before getting bulk. Thanks for all responses !

https://help.ubnt.com/hc/en-us/articles/115000166827-UniFi-Guest-Network-Setup

Seems good.

I am on Online Chat with Ubiquiti...........seems matches our requirements a lot....

@Breffni-Potter said in Access Point with captive portal and session limits for advertise.:

The only criticism I have of Ubiquiti captive portals is the load times compared with other captive portal options out there.

I see.

Also, I may need to limit the download size to avoid huge size downloads.

Hi all,

I am looking for an Access Point or Router with features like limited time connectivity (lets say based on device mac, Internet will work for 1 hour per day), register and log in to through captive portal (or whatever).

The idea is, to provide free Internet in our area (restaurants, parks etc.) and we advertise our blog website but Internet will be for limited time like 1 hour per day etc.

Our benefit : Users will visit our website by default, may stay and go through articles if they like, and can visit if they love it.

Public benefit : The get free Internet

Please advise for such solutions. I used to hear lots of good things about Ubiquiti, maybe they have that kind ?

Thanks for your time !!

@scottalanmiller
So the following commands are enough to get it done on CentOS 7 ? (https://mangolassi.it/topic/6967/installing-snipe-it-on-centos-7-and-mariadb/108 )

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/snipe/snipe-it/master/install.sh
chmod 744 install.sh
./install.sh