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USENIX Technical Program - Abstract - LISA-NT 99
A Networked Machine Management System
Dave Roth, Roth Consulting
Abstract
Out of the box, Win32 machines lack the ability to be efficiently
managed. It is up to an administrator to implement some form of system
management. For many administrators with relatively small networks
this means walking from machine to machine to install new software or
check to see how many CDROM drives exist on the computer. Considering
the sheer size of some networks it becomes a nightmare to do something
such as deploying an updated driver or service pack. Even a simple
task as discovering which computers have enough free hard drive space
for a software upgrade can take many hours of an administration teams
time. To be sure, this is not an isolated problem. It is ubiquitous
enough to create a market where there are several commercial products
available to help administrators manage this issue. Microsoft’s
Systems Management Service (SMS) is one example. However a product
such as this can become quite time consuming just to maintain the
system as well as costly for full licensing. With a little bit of
forethought administrators can implement a simple and efficient system
for performing the same functionality as a full-blown SMS
implementation. By using off-the-shelf products and some of
Win32’s standard services a network of almost any size can be
managed. This paper provides a case study on one particular
implementation.
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