TrueUpdate for network administrator

[Alex Sorokin]

Hello, all!
I am novice in TrueUpdate and need some help to understand how/if TrueUpdate can be used by network administrator.

There is an issue in FAQ for TrueUpdate:

"How does TrueUpdate benefit the network administrator?

Keeping a corporate, educational or government network up-to-date with the latest security patches, applications updates and operating system fixes is a time consuming ordeal. Without tools like TrueUpdate, the task is virtually impossible. By installing the TrueUpdate client onto your networked computers, you'll be able to quickly and effectively roll out whatever software you want throughout your organization. "

For example, I am network administrator. I need two kinds of automatic updates:
1. update N different applications that are installed on the workstations.
2. apply system fixes to operating systems that are installed on the workstations.
I got all updates and fixes as exe/msi files. Usually, i execute them manually - login on the workstation as administrator and execute appropriate update files from the special server directory. Now, I am going to automatize both of these tasks using TrueUpdate.

1) Where can I found a description of typical configuration process for solving both of these tasks?

2) As i understand, to solve the first task, I need to create N different projects in TrueUpdate - one per application. TrueUpdate will create N different TrueUpdate Clients and set of scripts. I need to install all the N clients on each of my client computers. When I get new update of the application, i will open corresponded TrueUpdate project, generate new update files and place them to the directory on the server. The corresponded instances of TrueUpdate Clients will find this update and install new version of the application on the workstations.

So, there is a question - who will execute the instances of TrueUpdate Clients? I can add command to launch of TrueUpdate Clients to system scheduler. But in this case, i need to make N schedule-tasks on each workstation (one per application, that's tedious process). Moreover, immediate update won't be possible because the update will be made according to the specified schedule only. Ideally, i need possibility to send special command "make update" to all instances of TrueUpdate Clients located on the workstations. Is it possible to implement such feature in TrueUpdate?

3) I don't see a good way to automatize execution of system fixes. Ideally, TrueUpdate client should download only missing fixes and shouldn't download any other fixes. As I understand, during process of updation, TrueUpdate client is able to download only a single file with whole set of updates. I.e. if i got new fix, i need to execute trueupdate and create new version of update, which will contain all previous fixes + new one. But in that case, all TrueUpdate clients will download this file (that is larger and larger..) and try to install ALL fixes instead of installing only new one - sometimes it's inadmissible. Is it possible to workaround this problems? Is it possible to workaround the problem without complex programming :) ?

Any help will be very appreciated, thanks a lot in advance

[Ulrich]

Hello Alex,

I am not a network administrator, but I'll try to comment on some of your questions.

TrueUpdate will let you to make almost anything through scripting. If you place a call to run the TrueUpdate client on each time a user logs in, for example, you could run a script to check the current software installation.

To update the applications, you can compare the installed version with the current one using registry keys, or maybe the embedded fileinfo version in the executable. How exactly you check if the installed software is current is up to you and may depend on each software you want to update, as well as your reaction to outdated software. You may need to download a patch, a zip file, a MSI installer, etc. - it depends on what exactly you are trying to update and how you would have to perform the update if done manually. If you can do it manually, you can perform it through a script written in Lua.

You don't have to make a TrueUpdate file for every application, because you can perform a series of file checks in the same procedure, if you wish. It may become a long Lua script, but you will see that it isn't complex at all to understand.

As for operating system updates... I am sure that there is a way to do it with TrueUpdate, but I think that it might be easier to use the tools already available to do this. I wouldn't want to keep track of file dependencies, installation orders and such headaches. Can't you use the Microsoft Windows Server Update Services (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/wsus/default.aspx) in your network? Or maybe AutoPatcher (http://www.autopatcher.com) to keep your workstations updated?

Ulrich