Remote management / PC config managment

[HW_Hack]

Did a search or 2 on Remote Management - no useful hits - so here goes.

I manage about 400 macs and 240 PCs at a high school. Issue here is the PCs as district IT manages most stuff on the macs. Our school network is a single domain and I'm using unique work group names on the PCs .... we have 3 PC computer labs so a lab group would be ABC-T4-00 > ABC-T4-38. Very basic stuff. We are running mostly XP-PRO and a little Win2K.

I am looking for guidance for some network SW to help with automation - and a good example is a PC LAB -- say I want to install a new networked printer to the ABC-T4 lab .... right now I have to go and physically touch every PC - we run a HP network printer wizard where we use the printers MAC ID# to lock in the printers network address.

So are there some remote management packages out there where I could config a new printer across an entire work-group ? Or push a new application out ??

Thanks in Advance

[Thrax]

Active Directory.

[QCH2002]

Yep... Workgroup is not the best environment for that many PC's. Create a domain for all the PC to join and use the active directory to set policies and push down scripts to install printers and such.

[HW_Hack]

OK - I know a bit about Active Directory(very little) - and thru our Win2K server I can go to Active Directory.

Only hitch on that is I will have to involve district IT in doing something like this .... meaning setting a domain name or getting it from IT (there are some control issues there) ....... ok I'll look into it. On the flip side I know the district is moving to Active Directory so who knows

Can anyone reccomend a good mid-level implementation / how-to book ??

Thanks

[kryyst]

Start with Active Directory For Dummies and then if you need to move on to Active Directory 2 for Dummies.

[HW_Hack]

Well the plot thickens ------ District IT doesn't want Active Directory implemented at any schools --- they are heading towards a district wide Open Directory solution in '08 / '09.

Sooooo in the meantime are there any modestly priced HW / SW solutions for me to gain some higher level of control / automation working at the workgroup level

Thanks again

[kryyst]

Not really. There are certain programs that can roll out certain things across a work group. But remember for any automation in a workgroup, since there is no central account authority you need to know the local administrative password on each machine. If they are all the same you are ok, if they are all different then you are sunk.

The only other little tool you could use to help would be to setup a vnc server to run on each machine. That would allow you to access them remotely for trouble shooting.

But for the most part no domain, no automation.

[GrayFox]

You need a ldap such as open directory, Anything else would be hacky and probably insecure..