networking

[Mast3rpyr0]

Im working on a program for my dad. hes a network admin wher ehe works and he asked me to make a program that he could use to find all computers on the network and map the C: drive to the server so he didnt have to take a floppy to each computer when an update is made to their software. i know i can use DriveMapAdd but how can i find each computer and what is the \\server\share thing?

Thanks

[rasim]

net view

[ssubirias3]

... hes a network admin wher ehe works .... find all computers on the network and map the C: drive to the server .... to ... update .... software.

I'm not completely sure why there's a need to find all computers on the network or map the local C: drive to a share point on server? And why is a he even dealing with a floppy much less visiting each computer to perform the "upgrades". SneakerNet has vanished years ago. Just seems odd how a "network admin" wouldn't simply drop to a command line and use NET USE. To better understand Net View look at this Microsoft article. And Daddy should be able to explain the \\server\share thingy

Have your Dad check to see if his company has Microsoft's SMS or another form of "push" technology. If not, I'd have some concerns about the company being in the dark ages. FYI, SMS basically "audits machines to determine which software versions are installed. It also installs new software, updates and patches existing software, and configures some operating system and applications variables."

You can also search the web for "push software updates" on google to get more ideas.

[Mast3rpyr0]

ya the company isnt that big, and it does have pretty old technology so this is how they do it. does anyone have helful information?

[tAKTelapis]

Well, for starters you are kind of going backwards about it.

I would do a similar thing, only in reverse, Instead of mapping the C drive of the remote computers to the server, Setup a share on the server:

\\server\programupdate$

(which by the way is referred to as a UNC path, \\server is representative of the Servers Name (ie: \\chudderedn00b ) \programupdate would represent the Share name of the folder on that server, and if the share is made specifying the $ sign, then it is a hidden share, and can only be accessed if you know its full UNC path.)

Now, to do the update thingy.

Make a program, that connects to that share, and looks at an ini file, with just 1 entry in it

[newupdate]
update=1

Set your script so that if "update" = 1 then it will pull down the required file from that share. If update = 0 It will exit.

Then have your dad make 1 last round, and put it in the Startup folder for all users, and make sure they have access to write to the C: drive and read from the servers share.

Its a much more efficient system than manually pushing a file to each computer. As systems will only update when required. They will also update whenever that script is ran, so your dad could easily email all required users, and have them goto:

Start > All Programs > Startup > UpdateSoftware.exe

Or something like that.

Hope that helps

/tAK

[Uten]

You did not find the enclosed information helpfull? Do you need it to be spoonfeed to you? No offnece but you did not bother to look up Net View did you?

If the network is small why not just try to connect them all? Thos who ain't alive will fail.

From the top of my head:

for $i = 1 to 254
    If ping("10.0.0."& $i) Then 
        $count += 1
            runwait(@comspec & " /c net use " & asc($count) & ": \\10.0.0." & $i & "\C$ ")
    EndIf
next

[DirtDBaK]

You did not find the enclosed information helpfull? Do you need it to be spoonfeed to you? No offnece but you did not bother to look up Net View did you?

If the network is small why not just try to connect them all? Thos who ain't alive will fail.

From the top of my head:

for $i = 1 to 254
    If ping("10.0.0."& $i) Then 
        $count += 1
            runwait(@comspec & " /c net use " & asc($count) & ": \\10.0.0." & $i & "\C$ ")
    EndIf
next

Nice Thought But thats going to slow it down and how do you figure this will work for ALL networks, possibly the users ip's are something like this

192.168.0.xxx then your script wouldn't work. I think its better to make the updating program that reads from the ini. Sounds like an awesome idea, actually i'm going to write this myself because i'm about ready to put my servers to use and i run a PC repair and sales shop, therefore i have a large amount of terminals to the server.

[enaiman]

Nice Thought But thats going to slow it down and how do you figure this will work for ALL networks, possibly the users ip's are something like this

192.168.0.xxx then your script wouldn't work. I think its better to make the updating program that reads from the ini. Sounds like an awesome idea, actually i'm going to write this myself because i'm about ready to put my servers to use and i run a PC repair and sales shop, therefore i have a large amount of terminals to the server.

No offense but ...

Uten's solution was a "fast one" it was meant to show something and to prove a point.

And about different networks having different IP ranges - that's true ... but it's very easy to replace the 10.0.0 with anything else.

[Mast3rpyr0]

Thanks Uten that look like it will work perfectly. I did look up net view and i started to make somethign that got the servername of each and save to a file and read each line and blah blah blah. yours looks much easier and faster. Thanks again.