Understanding Remote Installation Services

Installing and Configuring RIS
At this point, you're ready to install and configure RIS on your target server. You install RIS as an optional component either during the initial Win2K Server installation or later from the Control Panel Add/Remove Programs applet. If you install RIS on an existing server, you must restart the server after you select the option to install this component from the Add/Remove Programs applet.

After rebooting the server, RIS will be available on the machine in an unconfigured state. When you log on, the system will automatically launch the Remote Installation Services Setup Wizard (risetup.exe), which Figure 2 shows. The wizard walks you through the steps required to get your RIS server running and ready to provide installation images to clients.

The first step in the wizard is to select a folder to serve as the root of the installation folder structure. By default, the wizard selects the first NTFS volume that isn't the system or boot partition and creates a \RemoteInstall folder.

Next, you select whether the RIS server will respond to requesting RIS clients. By default, this option is off. Although this option seems odd, it lets you complete the installation process and fine-tune the configuration before you enable RIS. In the same dialog box, you can select whether the RIS server will respond to unknown clients. By default, the server will respond to any requesting client. To configure the server to respond only to clients that you've pre-authorized on the RIS server, select the Do not respond to unknown client computers check box.

The wizard then prompts you for the Win2K Pro CD-ROM or the location of a hard-disk-based distribution folder that contains the Win2K Pro installation files. After you specify the CD-ROM or the location of the folder, RIS Setup uses the files to build a RIS image. Usually, the Win2K Pro installation files you specify are a basic installation image. After you specify the location of the installation files, the wizard asks you to specify a folder to contain the RIS image. This folder will be under the \RemoteInstall\Setup\English\Images folder on the RIS server. The wizard provides a default folder name of win2000pro, but you can change the name to any name you prefer.

In the next step, the wizard offers you an opportunity to give the image a descriptive name. This description will appear in the list of installed images on the server and as the name displayed to the remote user who is installing the image. Therefore, be sure that the description you assign to the image is clear and reflects its contents (e.g., a description of Windows 2000 Professional is much better than W2KP).

After you specify the location of your initial RIS image and give it a folder and descriptive name, the setup wizard builds the image and installs and configures several ancillary services RIS relies on, including the BINL service, SIS Filter driver, SIS Groveler service, and TFTP service. (For more information about SIS, see the sidebar "SIS: Disk Space Savings for RIS," page 94.)

Preparing RIS Clients
The last step in the RIS deployment process is preparing the clients that will receive an installation image. A client can receive a RIS image using built-in PXE BIOS support or an RBFG-generated boot disk. If your client workstations provide PXE BIOS support, configuring your clients to use RIS will be as simple as configuring the system BIOS so that the machine includes the option to boot from the network in the list of boot device selections. However, if one or more of your clients don't provide PXE support, enabling RIS will involve using the RBFG utility to create a boot disk.

Using the RBFG Utility
Win2K automatically installs the RBFG utility on a RIS server in the \RemoteInstall\Admin\i386 folder. This folder is accessible over the network through the RemInst share, which the RIS setup wizard automatically creates and in which the Uniform Naming Convention (UNC) pathname to the file is \\RIS_server_name\RemInst\Admin\i386\Rbfg.exe.

After running the utility, you can create a boot disk or display a list of the supported PCI adapters, as Figure 3, page 94, shows. Unlike disks created with the network client setup program that Windows NT 4.0 provides, an RBFG-created disk isn't adapter-specific: The disk that the utility creates is the same regardless of the NIC in the machine on which you create the disk because the adapter type is auto-detected during system boot. Thus, the same disk will work for any machine that has an RBGF- and RIS-supported PCI adapter.

The Client Installation Wizard
After someone uses an RBFG-created boot disk or the system's native PXE support to boot the remote client, the client side of the RIS installation process begins. First, the client presents the user with a message that the client has obtained a DHCP address from a DHCP server. Then a message appears, telling the user to Press F12 for Network Service Boot. The user must press F12, or the client will skip the network boot process, and the installation process won't begin.

After the user presses F12, the client loads a binary setup image from a RIS server. This text-based program is the Client Installation Wizard, which handles the client side of the RIS installation process.

After the opening screen, the wizard prompts the user for authentication. This authentication feature provides several important security and management benefits to RIS administrators. For example, it prevents unauthorized users from installing RIS images; at the administrator's choice, it lets the username server as a basis for choosing the machine name; it lets administrators assign particular users to specific RIS servers; and it lets administrators control and limit the image choice that the image menu displays to users.

After the user provides a username, password, and domain name, the wizard authenticates the user against AD and assigns him or her a RIS server. The server then displays a menu of installation image choices to the client. After the user selects an image, the Client Installation Wizard displays a final screen warning that the installation process will repartition and reformat the disk, a process that will destroy any exiting data on the drive. After the user confirms that the installation can proceed, the setup image for the selected image is transferred to the workstation through TFTP and the installation process begins.

RIPrep: RIS Meets Disk Cloning
Although using RIS images based on CD-ROM or disk-based installation folders is fairly handy, some administrators might long for the convenience of disk duplication and cloning utilities because of these methods' ability to duplicate an entire system, including applications. However, RIS and disk imaging aren't mutually exclusive. In Win2K Server, Microsoft includes RIPrep (riprep.exe), a utility that lets you roll back and image a preconfigured Win2K system—complete with applications—to a state at which duplicating is safe.

RIPrep strips an installed system of its unique identification configuration data (i.e., SID and computer name). RIS servers host and deploy RIPrep-created images. The following list provides the requirements and limitations of RIPrep:

• RIPrep works only with Win2K Pro.
• The target computer that receives a RIPrep image must have a hard disk at least the size of the source computer's primary disk partition and must have the same hardware abstraction layer (HAL).
• Microsoft designed RIPrep to duplicate only the first partition of the first hard disk (i.e., the boot and system partition), which must contain Win2K Pro and all the applications you want included in the RIPrep image.
• RIPrep images tend to be larger than CD-ROM and distribution folder images because they hold an uncompressed copy of the source computer's primary disk partition, including applications.
• To use RIPrep images on a RIS server, you must ensure that you have CD-ROM and distribution folder images on the same server, for the same product and language. The reason is that in situations in which the drivers required for the target computer differ from those of the original source computer, the RIPrep answer file references the CD-ROM and distribution folder images to gain access to text-mode drivers.

The RIPrep Deployment Process
After you ensure that your RIS environment meets RIPrep's requirements, you can use the following steps to create and deploy a master RIPrep image. First, install and configure your master (i.e., source) computer. When partitioning the system's drive, use only the first partition and make it as small as possible with enough space to hold only Win2K and the applications and utilities you want the image to include. The size of the source computer's partition determines the minimum disk size requirement for your target systems.

Next, log on to the system with a user account and configure the Win2K environment, including network, security, user, and desktop settings. You then install every application that you want the master image to contain. Install these applications from a location that will be available later (e.g., a network UNC pathname or drive letter and path) so that they can access additional or updated files as necessary. If you install from a temporary location or a drive that might not be available on a target computer, you might encounter problems. In addition, refrain from installing applications that are .msi packages installed through Group Policy Objects (GPOs).

Next, verify that you've properly configured your master system and tested all applications. You can't edit a RIPrep image after you create it. If you don't properly set up your RIPrep image, you have to start the imaging process from scratch.

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