Installing Distribeast Remotely

Installing and upgrading any application manually on multiple machines is a cumbersome task. For large render farms with dozens of computers, it is an unsustainable and unfeasible approach. This page describes the options available to you for installing and upgrading Distribeast automatically on multiple computers in your network.

The self-upgrade system

Distribeast worker nodes automatically detect when a controller node has been upgraded to a new version, and prompt the logged-on user to upgrade the worker node.

This self-upgrade feature is primarily intended to simplify the distribution of newer versions of the software within smaller workgroups. Because the installation cannot proceed without user interaction, and cannot force the upgrade to be carried out automatically, the self-upgrade feature will not help for upgrading a large number of worker nodes. In addition, it can be relatively easy for a user to miss the upgrade notification. It is therefore expected that workgroups with a large number of worker nodes will be using software that allows the remote installation of software without user interaction, such as one of the methods described below.

For additional details on the automatic upgrade detection, see Installing Distribeast.

Installation using Group Policy

Group Policy is a Windows technology that allows administrators to propagate changes to large numbers of computers within a domain, including installing new software.

Group Policy requires that all computers be part of the same domain. Normally, each computer retrieves its group policy settings when it starts up, and applies the settings in the background after the user has logged in. However, some settings such as software installations may not be able to be completed in the background. It may therefore take more than one reboot for a computer to successfully install or upgrade Distribeast using the Group Policy infrastructure.

For details on Group Policy, see: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsserver/bb310732.aspx

Installation using PsExec

PsExec is a tool provided by Microsoft that allows administrators to run executables remotely. You can use this tool to install Distribeast remotely on one or more computers.

Pre-requisites

Either:

All computers involved need to be part of the same domain, or
The remote computer needs to have file sharing turned on and UAC remote restrictions turned off.
To enable file sharing in Windows 7, see: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg252567%28v=ws.10%29.aspx. Other versions of Windows are similar.

To disable UAC Remote Restrictions, see: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/951016. This article details the procedure for Windows Vista, but the same applies to Windows 7 as well.
NOTE:Disabling UAC Remote Restrictions lowers the security of the computers!

Getting PsExec

Download the PsTools suite from: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb545046, and extract the .zip file anywhere on your computer.

Installation procedure

To install Distribeast on a remote computer using PsExec:

Create a network share where you can place the Distribeast installer. For instance, \\server\share. Place the Distribeast installer (the distribeast.msi file from the Beast package) in the new share.
NOTE:You must ensure that the user account on each remote machine has access to this share. If the machines are not on the same domain, you may need to share with “Everyone” as well as enabling the Guest account on the server. For Windows 7, see: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Turn-the-guest-account-on-or-off. Other versions of Windows are similar.
Run a command line with the following syntax:
```
psexec [\\computer1[,computer2] | @file] [-u user -p password] -h msiexec /i \\server\share\distribeast.msi /qn
```
- The -h parameter is needed in order to run the installation with administrator privileges.
- All parameters after msiexec are treated as parameters to the installer process.
- The /qn flags are needed in order to install without a user interface.

Examples

Install on a single remote machine. PsExec prompts for user name and password:

psexec \\machine1 -h msiexec /i \\myserver\myshare\distribeast.msi /qn

Install on multiple machines, specifying the user name and password:

psexec \\machine1,machine2,machine3 -u myusername -p password123 -h msiexec /i \\server01\sharename\distribeast.msi /qn

Install on a list of machines contained in an input file, specifying the user name and password:

psexec @mycomputers.txt -u myusername -p password123 -h msiexec /i \\fileserver\distribeastshare\distribeast.msi /qn