Press Release
August 10, 1999
How To Automate Boring NT Admin Tasks
SEBASTOPOL, CA -- Anyone faced with the task of setting up and managing a
large number of workstations quickly learns the limitations of a
graphical user interface. Ashley Meggitt and Matthew Lavy manage the
LAN at Jesus College, Cambridge, where they've developed a number of
scripts and techniques to bypass the GUI limitations and administer the
workstations centrally. The result is the just-released
Windows NT Workstation
Configuration and Maintenance, the only book on the market
to focus on automating the management tasks you perform daily to keep a
large workstation farm up and running.
"Few things in life are as boring as maintaining and configuring a
fleet of NT workstations. Management of a reasonable sized network can
be extremely interesting-optimizing protocols, exploring new
technologies, examining network speeds, these can all be very
rewarding. But if there is a system administrator anywhere who doesn't
groan at the prospect of cleaning up hard disks, reconfiguring
workstations so they can be moved, or tidying up oversized registries,
I haven't met them," says Meggitt. "Imagine this scenario, instead.
When a workstation boots up, or at some predetermined time of day, a
script will run.
The script may carry out basic maintenance tasks like clearing
temporary directories, archiving event logs, or tidying the registry.
Or it may consult a server-based database, and note that the
workstation on which it was running was due to be moved to new offices,
and in preparation for the move, the script will change the machine's
network identity, reconfigure IP, and change various security
parameters. If problems arise, the sys admin will be notified by
automatic email. Finally, (or perhaps, initially) the script will check
with a network server to make sure that it is not obsolete. If it is,
it will install a replacement, and kill itself without complaint. This
can be achieved remarkably painlessly. "
Instead of trying to provide one-size-fits-all solutions to what are in
reality site-specific kinds of problems, Lavy and Meggitt concentrate
on the techniques you need to master to keep your workstations under
control. "We demonstrate how a tiny script running automatically on
each workstation can load more substantial scripts from a network
server, which in turn can be used to carry out virtually any
administration task you can think of. There are literally thousands of
administration tasks that could be automated by scripting," says Lavy.
This new book's step-by-step approach shows you how to implement Perl
scripts to take care of your particular problems. Topics include:
- Running scripts without user intervention
- Remote script installation
- Controlling services and drivers
- Machine-specific settings
- Changing network identity
- Perl modules and functions
- Developing custom Perl modules
Windows NT Workstation
Configuration and Maintenance
is an indispensable tool for the busy NT system administrator.
Chapter 5, Chapter 5 Controlling Services and Drivers, is available
free online at:
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/ntmaint/chapter/ch05.html
For more information about the book, including Table of Contents,
index, author bio, and a sample chapter, see:
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/ntmaint/
###
Windows NT Workstation
Configuration and Maintenance: Automated Workstation Management
By Matthew M. Lavy & Ashley J. Meggitt
1st Edition August 1999
1-56592-613-7, 164 pages, $24.95 (US$)
About O'Reilly
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