In my previous Article : https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/articles/using-driver-management-ds-console-manage-device-drivers-and-best-practices I have covered how the drivers can be managed using the Driver management console UI , In this Article I have tried to cover the command line options provided by the Driver manager to maintain a driver database , these commands also will be useful if anyone wants to automated the driver database using any scripting language or in any automation environment;
It is possible to add & manage drivers using the command line option in to DA driver database and Preboot driver database;
DriverManager
There are DA driver manager utility – DriverManager.exe & DriverManager64.exe which are present in the NS Server at location : “c:\Program Files\Altiris\Altiris Agent\Agents\Deployment\Task Handler\ghost”; You may see a binary DriverDBMgr64.exe which is a wrapper and is used in the UI , so you should only use the utility DriverManager64.exe.
Using which user can perform add , delete operation on driver database , User has to provide the driver database path which should be “C:\Program Files\Altiris\Altiris Agent\Agents\Deployment\Task Handler\DriversDB” [or at the Altiris installation directory, if not default ] and the location of the DA driver source directory while addition and name of the driver while deletion; Switches needs to use as /ADD and /DEL respectively.
Following is the format of driver manager commands :
DriverManager.exe Driver Database Manager
DriverManager.exe /DDB=<Path to DriverDB> /ADD=<Path to DA Driver Source>
[DDB] DS Driver database location
Syntax : /ddb=< Path to DS DriverDB >
[ADD] Addition of drivers to database.
Syntax: /add=<path to driver folder>
[DEL] Removal of drivers from database.
Syntax: /del=<driver name>
Check DriverManager.exe /? Which gives detail help information for the drivermanager execution.
Below are sample examples of DriverManger commands:
1> DriverManager.exe /DDB= C:\Program Files\Altiris\Altiris Agent\Agents\Deployment\Task Handler\DriversDB /ADD=E:\Drivers\
2> DriverManager.exe /DDB= C:\Program Files\Altiris\Altiris Agent\Agents\Deployment\Task Handler\DriversDB /DEL= Adaptec.1.02.063
Above command 1 will import all the drivers present from the directory E:\Drivers , And command 2 will delete the driver ‘Adaptec.1.02.063’ these can be seen from the DS console ‘Driver management’ UI page.
Just copying of the driver folder in to the Driver database will not work as it will not generate a drivermanifest file which is required for any further DeployAnywhere operations; When driver gets imported driver manager creates a drivermanifest file inside each driver folder which has a device id information in a specific format which is essential for the Deplopyanywhere operation to run successfully.
When a user adds the drivers from this command line utility the run time logs will be generated and will be displayed at the console , mentioning success or failure with the reason.
This utility supports importing of the drivers of all kinds including Critical and non critical drivers. The driver added using this utility can be used for all DeployAnywhere operations like DeployAnywhere retargeting after Imaging operation and for scripted OS install operations.
DriverManager.exe utility also has some more switches like List , count , overwrite which are expert command line options and some of them are not used in Driver Manager UI Console operation, make use of these command line options carefully.
[OVERWRITE] Overwrite a driver in the database. To be used with /add command.
Syntax: /overwrite
[FORMAT] Two formats are currently supported 'xml' and 'manifest'. To be used with /list command.
Syntax: /format=<type>
[COUT] Allows any output produced by a program to be directed to this file.
Syntax: /cout=<filename>
[LIST] Ability to list specific devices by different Ids. To list all devices in database use /list syntax.
Syntax: /list=<class=value;hwid=value1,value2;vendor=value1,value2;device=value1,value2;subsys=value1,
value2;os=value; system type=value> or /list=c:\da_out.txt
[EXTRACT] Ability to extract all files to a given folder pointed to by additional /cout parameter.
Syntax: see /list for information.
CAUTION: /extract with no parameters will copy entire DA library to a given folder!
[TAG] Ability to tag specific derivers by a tag string. To be used with /add command. To tag the driver at the time of driver addition use /tag syntax.
Syntax: /tag=<value>
[PREFIX] Ability to prefix a string to the driver name. To be used with /add command. To add a prefix to the driver name at the time of driver addition use /prefix syntax.
Syntax: /prefix=<value>
Bootwiz
Similar to DA Driver manager a command line option is available for the Preboot database management , Deployment solution uses Bootwiz.exe utility to manage the drivers for the preboot driver database , The utility available in the NS location at : c:\Program Files\Altiris\Altiris Agent\Agents\Deployment\Task Handler\bootwiz [or at the Altiris installation directory, if not default ];
Using this utility user can perform different operations to manage the drivers in the preboot driver database ;
Bootwiz.exe /? Gives you the list of switches and options possible using the bootwiz utility , this is the exactly same utility which is present in the Deployment Solution 6.9 Console, the users of DS 6.9 must be familiar with this tool, so I am not going in details for this;
Using this user can add , delete drivers in to the Preboot driver database Along with that bootwiz utility command line options are available for different following operations.
· Installation of Preboot OS files
· Creating PXE boot image
· Creating ISO boot image
· Create a boot configuration
· Add , List , Delete preboot OS drivers
· Addition of x86 , x64 Windows and Linux OS drivers
· Force some actions
The driver database location for the preboot drivers is at : c:\Program Files\Altiris\Altiris Agent\Agents\Deployment\Task Handler\bootwiz\platforms , Winpe2 for windows and Linux for linux drivers.
When you have added the driver in to the Preboot driver database , these can be verified form the Driver management -> Preboot DS console UI page or can be verified at the driver database location , for the user added drivers the boot wiz creates a directory as CUSTOME ; e.g. <NS SErver> \Task Handler\bootwiz\Platforms\Linux\x86\DRIVERS\CUSTOM.