PortHack Desktop IT Management

Build Logs Space Projects
#1

Problem

I believe, (I’m sure I’ll be corrected if wrong) we dont have much centralised management of our various computers around the space. We dont have a standard way of:

  • Deploying images
  • Deploying updates
  • Managing os and software licenses
  • Taking backups and images
  • Any kind of centralised authentication (like basic AD or LDAP)
  • No kind of MDM solution for our mobile devices

While i think infrastructure manages some of this stuff manually, im sure they’d appreciate a slicker system but are just too busy to make it happen.

Proposed Solution

Theres a pile of software out there to do this stuff. I think anything thats free or very cheap is worthwhile.

Limitations

None

Deliverables

  1. A way to deploy images to physical machines
  2. A way to keep physical machines up to date
  3. Some kind of centralised auth so we stop having local accounts people lose passwords to
  4. A way to backup machines
  5. A way to freeze machines so they boot exactly the same every time
  6. A way to manage installed software and licenses
#2

just curious … how much time is really spend managing this sort of thing at hsbne… i thought it was basically ‘if it aint broke don’t fix it’ system… ie:

  • don’t deploy images as they take work to maint properly
  • let machines update themselves (windows, chrome), as it works fine. don’t update other apps unless broken, as it takes away from doing find stuff.
  • central auth…? we already have it 'username : hsbne, password: hsbne , anything more complicated takes away from doing fun stuff and AD and LDAP are not fun, and work terribly for a BYOD style network like we mostly have.
  • backups…? don’t do backups, as they are hard and everything that is a hsbne asset is essentially a shared-resource-kiosk-style walk-up-to machine that shouldn’t have ‘data’ on it that matters. only data on them came in via a usb key and is ephemeral anyway.
  • ‘freeze machines’ - not a bad idea ’ Reboot Restore Rx’ is freeware and i can vouch for it working most of the time… occassionally Windows 10 updates need it to be disabled and re-enabled. - free.
  • installed software licenses - the only licensed stuff that matters is oem-windows, and the pre-loved computers we get usually come with the windows OEM stickers on it. Also, windows 10 now run perfectly fine without any activation - so for other boxes, thats ok too… ive run boxes for years without ever activating.

so… i guess what i’m saying is that im on the opinion that doing none of what u suggest is the least amount of work, in my NSHO.

#3

Hi Buzz, this part of the forum is for documenting ideas that people might want to pick up and work on at some point. A lot of them are ‘nice to haves’ or theoreticals. You are correct that the above is not a hard need, but a nice to have. The point of these posts is to get members who are not engaged, a starting point where they can apply some existing skills and add value.

If this post never gets done, thats fine. if someone gets inspired by it and gets involved and does it exactly as per the post, cool. If someone gets inspired by it and does something similar but different, also cool :slight_smile:

1 Like
#4

Companies like red hat apple and ms have interns who work for nix and budjets for commuity groups.
What i’m saying is use the money these firms get from government and aim for high quality solution.
Even cisco has play money to put towards public project sponsorship.