Ghost Solution Suite

At present there is no provision to remote control the ghost client machine from ghost console.  Therefore  once a ghost activity is started on client machine, ghost console does not have any idea of what's happening on client side except logs and  if the activity fails subsequently  ghost console does not have any indication. Problem severity increases if client machine is at different location and/or is in Pre-OS environment.
 

Overview
Symantec pcAnywhere provides secure, remote access to computers and servers. It lets you quickly resolve helpdesk and server support issues or stay productive while you work away from your office. You can use your desktop computer, laptop, or mobile device to work across multiple platforms, including Windows®, Linux®, and Mac® OS. You can also deploy a limited-functionality, single-use host to computers that do not have a host running. The Windows Thin Host Configuration Wizard guides you through the process of configuring the host properties for target computers that run Windows. At the end of the wizard, you can deploy the host and start a connection.
Symantec pcAnywhere reuses the host properties for all subsequent Quick Deploy and Connect sessions. The host properties that you configure apply only to connections that are made using Quick Deploy and Connect. They do not affect the host connection items in the Hosts window.

Symantec Ghost is the software to make the hardware independent imaging of desktops and deploy on multiple machine. You use the Symantec Ghost Boot Wizard to create boot packages. A boot package
can be a boot disk, a Ghost image file, an ISO image, or a Preboot eXecution Environment (PXE) image. You use boot packages for cloning operations.
 
Whenever we create a Ghost bootable disk using WinPE or if we are executing task on client using WinPE then we can integrate pcA thin host in that package. So as soon as client boots up in WinPE, on the client side pcA thin host will get launched & will establish a remote session with the server. Now person sitting on server will have visibility of what's happening on client side. This setting will be configurable from console/server side. Apart from this we can integrate pcA thin host with In Band ghost client also. So as soon as we remotely install ghost client pcA thin host will also get installed. Now console administrator can just right click the ghost client machine which is visible on console & say remote control. During pcA we did testing of pcA thin host in WinPE & its works.
 
Use cases

• This solution will help in resolving above problem for different states of client machine.

                State 1 – Windows operating system is running on client machine
                State 2 – Client machine is booted  in Pre-OS environment either using  ghost bootable    
                                 package or the task assigned  from the ghost console.
 

• Manage Linux machine for deployment /cloning of image. Cross platform remote management of imaging.
• Capturing screenshots for the errors in Winpe Pre-os.

 
Integration process
Follow the steps below to create pcA thin host to integrate in One click VP of Ghost

• Install Symantec pcAnywhere 12.5 Build 441 Box product.
• Open pcAnywhere

• Select Quick Deploy and Connect option from left panel. Select Configure for Windows from Actions menu.
• The Windows Thin Host Configuration Wizard lets you configure a thin host for use for later deployment. Click next

 

• Select Host name to display, Authentication type and Encryption level. Also select other appropriate option to configure host.

• Set user name and password for the thin host. Users will be prompted for these log on credentials when they attempt to connect to the thin host

• Accept the license and click to “Save to Disk” option. Save the thin host executable to a separate directory for later deployment.

 

1. Follow the steps below to create One click VP of Ghost

• Install Symantec Ghost Solution Suite 2.5.1 (GSS).
• Open Ghost Boot Wizard (GBW) to create one click partition. Select Winpe as Pre-os and click next

• Select Standard Ghost Boot Disk from the image type.

• Select default client type.

• Select appropriate network client configuration to map network drive and access resources on the server.

• Enter the network settings for the machine that is to be booted from this package (DHCP or Static ip address)

• Select the target to save the boot package. Select one-click virtual partition.

• Add pcAnywhere thin host executable which we have created earlier.

• Edit the setting by clicking on “start editing”.  Add the path of thin host executable to execute in Winpe. Example is giving in below screen shot

• Click on finish once the one click partition executable is created

 
 
 Copy and run One click Virtual Partition on the machine which you want to image and manage remotely.

 Benefit

1. Remote control ability while taking ghost image remotely
2. Troubleshoot the remote machine if any errors
3. Manual operations on remote machine. (diskpart, tcpip configuration, etc)

 Conclusion
It will help System Administrator / customer to view the activity on remote machine. Also it will solve the problem of taking snapshot of the errors and troubleshooting of the problem remotely.