Creating Custom Windows Provisioning Profiles (Sun N1 Service Provisioning System User's Guide for OS Provisioning Plug-In 3.0)

Sun N1 Service Provisioning System User's Guide for OS Provisioning Plug-In 3.0

Creating Custom Windows Provisioning Profiles

You can use the provisioning software to generate a custom Windows provisioning profile for your deployments. The OS Provisioning Plug-In can generate all the necessary variables and plans to provision the Windows OS to your target hosts.

If you want to manually create a Windows provisioning profile, see How to Configure the Setup Information for the Windows Image.

How to Create a Custom Windows Provisioning Profile (Browser Interface)

This procedure describes how to use the OS Provisioning browser interface to generate a custom Windows provisioning profile.

Before You Begin

Make sure the Windows image server exists and that the Windows OS software is available to that server. For more information about creating the Windows image server, see Setting Up the Windows Server.

Steps

In the Common Tasks section of the provisioning software page, select OS Provisioning.

On the OS Provisioning Common Tasks page, click Create Profile in the Windows Images section.

On the Plans Details page, click Run.

Choose variables to use for this plan.
- To use an existing variables set, select a name from the drop-down menu in the WindowsImage component row of the Plan Parameters table.
- To create a new variables set, click Select from List in the WindowsImage component row of the Plan Parameters table.
  1. Click Create Set.
  2. Type a name for the variables set.
  3. Verify variables and change them, if needed.
    
    If you need more information than is provided in the prompts in the component variables table, see the detailed list of components, along with default values and examples, in Windows Provisioning Profile Variables.
    
    Note –
    For custom-based profiles, you must not specify a value for the sif_file variable.
  4. Save the variables set.
  5. Select the variables set that you just saved from the drop-down menu in the WindowsImage component row of the Plan Parameters table.

On the Plan Details Run page, select the Windows image server on which to attach the image.

Tip –
The host name of the Windows image server ends in -windows.

If needed, change the Profile Name.

If needed, change the Profile Description.

Verify that the checkbox for the Create the Custom Profile option is selected.

Click Run Plan (includes preflight).

To verify that the Windows image is attached to the Windows image server, click Components in the left pane of the N1 SPS browser interface.

You should see a component of type com.sun.n1osp#Provision that has a description similar to Windows provisioning profile.

Edit the variables for the custom-based Windows provisioning profile.

You need to edit the component variables for the custom Windows profile to enter values for the following items.
- OS Provisioning control service
- Product key
- User name
- Organization name
- Time zone
- Terminal server properties
- Language and locale for the target host
1. In the Common Tasks section of the provisioning software page, select OS Provisioning.
2. On the OS Provisioning Common Tasks page, click Provision OS in the Windows Images section.
3. On the Components page, click the profile you previously created in the Components column.
4. On the Components Details page, click Edit.
5. On the Component Details Edit page, click the check box next to the variable that you want to edit, then type the value for the variable in the Value for This Component column.
  
  Edit the values for the following variables.
  
  osp_profile_control_service
  
  Specifies whether to call the OSP Control Service, which automates power off, reboot, and power on functions. For Windows provisioning, set the value of this variable to true.
  
  user_full_name
  
  Specifies the full name of the user for the target host.
  
  organization_name
  
  Specifies the name of the organization of which the target host is a member.
  
  product_key
  
  Specifies the product key for the OS distribution.
  
  timezone
  
  Specifies the time zone for the target host.
  
  profile_language
  
  Specifies the language or locale to install on the target host.
  
  profile_language_group
  
  Specifies the language group to install on the target host.
  
  install_terminal_server
  
  Specifies that the profile should install a terminal server on the target host.
  
  terminal_server_allow_connections
  
  Specifies whether the target host should allow remote connections.
  
  terminal_server_licensing_mode
  
  Specifies how the terminal services manages Client Access Licenses.
  
  terminal_server_permissions_setting
  
  Enables administrators to choose the security mode for terminal server users.
6. Click Check In.

Next Steps

To install the Windows OS on your target host, you must modify the BIOS boot settings, then run the provisioning plan. For more information, see Installing the Windows OS on the Target Host.

How to Create a Custom Windows Provisioning Profile (Command Line Interface)

Steps

To create a variable set for the WindowsImage component, type a command similar to the following example:

# cr_cli -cmd cdb.vs.add -comp NM:/com/sun/n1osp/untyped/WindowsImage \
-name "windows2003custom" -u admin -p admin -vars \
"osp_server=masterserver-osp;os_name="WIN2003_trial"version=2003; \
installPath="2003customprofile"; \
description=test windows image 2003;min_disk_size=10GB; \
boot_server_name=biwl;boot_server_subnet_address=10.42.42.0; \
boot_server_subnet_ip_address=10.42.42.4;\
boot_srv_active_directory_domain=n1.west.example.com;\
windows_product_directory=D:\\\\RemoteInstall\\\\Setup\\\\English
\\\\Images\\\\Win2003_trial"

Note –

The windows_product_directory should be included all on one line. For display purposes, this entry appears on two separate lines.

For more information about the variables, see Windows Provisioning Profile Variables.

Create a file named /tmp/windows-profile with the following entries.
custom Windows 2003 EE x86 Profile true
The entries in this file correspond to the following plan variables.
- custom specifies the Profile Name.
- Windows 2003 EE x86 Profile specifies the Profile Description.
- true specifies that this plan will generate a custom profile.

To run the plan, type a command similar to the following example:

# cr_cli -cmd pe.p.run -u admin -p admin \
-PID NM:/com/sun/n1osp/untyped/WindowsImage-create-profile \
-tar H:NM:risserver-windows -comp - -vs windows2003custom -pto 30 -nto 10 \
-f /tmp/windows-profile

Note the default N1 SPS user value you specified with the -u option. This user must exist after the OS installation for the N1 SPS Remote Agent software to start on the target host.