Windows Domain F@H Deployment?

So I have to ask, for those who have borged numerous computers at once: how did you do it?

I have 20-someodd machines that need borging and all are members of my Windows domain, so I can easily deploy software to them. The problem, however, is configuring all of the clients, as well as making them run as a service, rather than be opened wide for the user to simply close.

Any guides for this out there?

There was a guide back in the day I used to borg an office of about 30 PCs. So things like this are out there, tho I don't have any current specific recommendations I know of.

There are a couple of options that are available to you.

You could have a script add lines to the registry and copy the client files over to the hosts...
Or if you know how to make an MSI you could build one and deploy that with group policy.

In ether option you need to have no Queue.dat, unitinfo or Workfolder before you deploy so that when the service starts at next boot it gets its own work.

I'm not an IT guy, so I can't tell you how to set everything up or distribute it to all of the computers, but I can tell you that the Windows uniprocessor console version has a "run as a service" option and does not have to be "installed". You can read more here: http://folding.stanford.edu/English/WinUNIGuide#ntoc2

Of course, you may want to run SMP clients (more PPD) if the computers support it.

Beware of domain group policies that can break the SMP service... since it has extra registry entries that the uni and gpu clients do not have. Mine would break everytime the computer was restarted, but there are ways to work around even that.

There are domain deployers for F@H out there, but I'm not sure if they'll work with anything but uiniprocessor clients.

I been considering making a deployer for linux/unix/osx systems, but it'd depend on some sloppy methods like key-based passwordless ssh and a looping script where you'd have to add a list of hostnames. Even then you might have to go through each machine to put in a cron entry so it starts at boot.... not sure how to inject text into cron with a script. I used to have a pretty smart linux folding service, back before there was smp or gpu folding and when -advmethods and the gromacs core was brand new, smart enough to look at your cpu(s) and set the client options that gave the best ppd.

Well, currently all my boxen are single core single cpu systems, sans the servers, so all I need to do is find one of those domain deployers

create a vbscript or batch file that just dumps the files and config, then adds the registry settings to enable it as a service, running as Local System.
Drop it in your domain as \\domain.controller\domain.name\SYSVOL\scripts\something.bat

have it call a custom made silent installer that's on an accessible share
"\\fileserver\sharename\fah-silentinstaller.exe"

Theres some setting somewhere (sorry it's been a while) that calls that script on domain login. Look under Domain Policies somewhere (sorry again -- someone please chime in)

I haven't actually done this with FAH, but I have done it with some inventory software.
The only thing you need to beware of is doing a check for it being already installed. Something along the lines of an IF EXIST in the batch file should work.

Sorry, this was a 5 min response and I gotta get outta here... any questions, leave them and I'll try to get back to you.

Cheers.

Way back in the day I seem to recall Dark_15 and myself developing deployment scripts for the 5.02 client. The core of script centered around using Wedo's one-click installer.

I'll do some digging and try to track down the last copy of the deployment script I had.

I wonder what mutsu is doing. I remember somebody posted something somewhere that said he and the other blade server folders had figured out some way to deploy to a bunch of computers easily. It kinda sounded like they were PXE booting though, so that wouldn't help much.