How do I create a Auto-Deploy when a user comes online with a specific subnet ?
I have the latest versions of PDQ Deploy & PDQ inventory.
But as recent times only certain people comeback to the office once in a while (some once every 2 weeks etc). While most are mainly working from home (via VPN).
Our LAN IP is 20.1.1.xxx & 20.1.8.xxx (2 sites connected by MPLS) while our VPN uses 20.20.1.xxx.
PDQ Inventory can scan the machines regularly...how do I create a grouping for those machines with like Veeam 3.01 (win 7 & win 10) with IP address 20.1.1.xxx & 20.1.8.xxx ?
Then how can I use that group above to create a deployment job to install Veeam 4.01 ? I have created a deployment and tested it on a few machines. But I cannot be manually monitoring between 10am & 5pm (even hourly) for which machines have Veeam 3.01 & which have Veeam 4.01, then deploy. Is there an easier way to to this ?
Comments
HI Adrian,
you can create a dynamic collection based on IP address in Computer properties and use this in your deployments as a condition.
Computer > IP Address > Does not start with > 20.20.1.
Here you should have only a list of computers on the LAN, but I am afraid it wont work in situations where your VPN client software uses a persistent connection configuration and the user is on the LAN also connected via VPN.
Veeam is also not smart in such situation. Kerio Control's VPN is such a case.
I hope this helps you a bit.
I just tested the Idea and it seems to be working. I don't know how PDQ Inventory decides which IP is put in to the "IP Address" field while multiple adapters are active on the computer. (LAN, WiFi, VPN). I thought that its metric based, but it seems it is not, because I can see the VPN connected with metric 1 yet in the "IP Address" field is a LAN IP. Remote computer have the VPN IP in there.
@... - any info on this, how its done? Might help the Veeam guys to fix it. Thanks!
EDIT: found out that PowerShell and Get-NetIPInterface + Get-NetAdapter are your friends. Further investigation revealed that the "ifindex" - adapter priority - is changing depending on the state of the VPN (connected/disconnected) and the computer location (remote, local).
EDIT|2: Please take in consideration that I am a powerShell n00b,..
Get-NetIPAddress -AddressFamily IPv4 | Where-Object -Property PrefixOrigin -NE WellKnown | sort ifIndex | Format-Table
This will show you a list of IPv4 addresses of the system sorted by priority. The lowest the number, the higher the prioroty is.
P.S.> I hope that the 20.x.y.x addresses in you comment are just a example and not really used, as those are real public IP addresses belonging to Micosoft :-D (20.0.0.0 - 20.31.255.255)
Actually I have completed it 10 days ago....
1. create dynamic inventory (VAW3) with
- Application, veeam, version less than 4
- computer, IP address, not containing. 20.20.
- computer, online, true
2. created PDQ deploy job, hourly from 9am to 3pm, from collection (as above, VAW3)
....
The only problems are (limitations of PDQ)
- cannot limit number of deployments for this job. Some jobs are small (eg update registry, delete c:\windows\temp) so can run many at same time. Some jobs are heavy (need to copy 200 MB files, then stop services, run installer etc) so may want to run a few at same time, but not affect other jobs
- cannot really set heartbeat
- cannot set when to scan dynamic collection (eg hour+45min)
Glad to hear that you were able to solve it.
The number of paralel deployments based on package is on the feature request table from me for some time.
Which heartbeat are you talking about? Scan profile or deployment?
It maybe hard for inventory to scan once machines come online, but Inventory could scan like every 30 min, then trigger deploy when machines come online ?
Therefore maybe both ? Especially if Inventory can trigger deployment (in a way this can bypass the need for number of parallel deployments but may cause boot storm if too many people come at same time).
By default, Inventory pings every computer every 5 minutes (Heartbeat Interval). If you use the Heartbeat Trigger, it will trigger a deployment if a target's Online status goes from No to Yes.