Creating custom Initial Deployment menus for each NBS/PXE server

Products

• Deployment Solution

Issue/Introduction

Is it possible to configure a different menu for Initial Deployment jobs/tasks for agents booted to select NBS site servers (PXE)?

Environment

ITMS 8.x

Deployment Solution 8.x

Cause

In large environments there may be a need to have a different Initial Deployment menus offered to agents depending on what site or NBS site server they booted from. It is possible to create separate Initial Deployment Settings targeting specific NBS servers and their booted agents.

Example:

'Site1' which contains NBS site server 'NBS-A' conducts OS installs with Scripted OS Install tasks. 'Site1' should not be deploying or capturing images. When a machine in 'Site1' boots to NBS site server 'NBS-A' the Initial Deployment menu offered to that machine should only contain jobs/tasks related to Scripted OS Install.

'Site2' which contains NBS site server 'NBS-B' is responsible for capturing an deploying images and not SOI. When a machine in Site2' boots to NBS server 'NBS-B' the Initial Deployment menu offered to the agent should only contain jobs/tasks related to Image deploy and capture.

Resolution

By default, the SMP console contains one Initial Deployment Settings page which targets all NBS/PXE servers managed in the environment. The default settings does not allow for targeting specific NBS servers.

However, if the settings are cloned, an additional option for targeting specific NBS servers is available. This allows an administrator to configure different settings targeting one or more NBS servers. NBS servers not targeted with a custom Initial Deployment menu will default to using the original non-cloned settings/menu.

Navigate to Settings > Deployment > Initial Deployment in the console.

By default, you will see 'Initial Deployment' settings targeting all NBS site servers and agents booted from them. If a different menu needs to be configured depending on what NBS server an agent boots from, you can clone the original settings:

Following the example in the 'cause' section of the article, we will clone the original settings and target 'Site1' which contains NBS site server 'NBS-A'. Then we will clone the original settings again and target 'Site2' which contains NBS site server 'NBS-B':

Once the cloned settings policies are created, add the jobs and tasks that 'Unknown' and 'Managed' computers should receive after booting from each server.

Any NBS site server NOT assigned to a custom settings policy will take the settings configured in the original policy. To prevent accidental deletion, the original settings policy can't be deleted from the console.