Hi all,
I’'ve got my wildfire working absolutely perfectly - now I need to deploy the client.
What would people recommend? I don’'t know how to do scripting myself, and there is no MSI, but I would really appreciate someone pointing me in the right direction.
Thanks in advance all,
David
Have you looked at the Spark Manager plug-in? This allows you to send people to a web address to download the client. They will still have to install it once downloaded.
If you don’'t mind spending money, you could purchse Wildfire Enterprise - this has a much better client deployment capability.
And then you can also “skin” your version of Spark to tie it down to your Widlfire server only.
Hi, thank you.
Unfortunately, the users cannot themselves install software because they are not administrators. Therefore, I would need to use scripting / GPO to install the software - any advice on these two?
David
Hi,
may I ask how you do install other software?
A normal file copy is fine for Spark, one can copy the extracted Spark files to c:\temp\Spark\ and run Spark from there also if you don’'t allow software installations. I think the registry is used for some things within Spark, so your GPO could cause some trouble during startup. Before you do it this way please verify that a filecopy installation does not violate the license of the distributed Spark version which comes with an installer.
LG
Put this in your login script.
Make sure X:\spark points to wherever your “installed” version of Spark is (i.e. install it on one computer, then copy the C:\Program Files\Spark\ directory to a central place on a server. Remember to put your server details, along with error checking in as well.
MKDIR “C:\Program Files\Spark”
MKDIR “%USERPROFILE%\Spark”
XCOPY “x:\Spark” “C:\Program Files\Spark” /H /E /C /K /V /I /Q /Z /Y
ECHO #Saving Spark Settings > %USERPROFILE%\Spark\spark.properties
ECHO #Wed Aug 16 16:33:50 EST 2006 >> %USERPROFILE%\Spark\spark.properties
ECHO password=== >> %USERPROFILE%\Spark\spark.properties
ECHO idleTime=^1 >> %USERPROFILE%\Spark\spark.properties
ECHO idleOn=true >> %USERPROFILE%\Spark\spark.properties
ECHO timeDisplayed=true >> %USERPROFILE%\Spark\spark.properties
ECHO username=%USERNAME% >> %USERPROFILE%\Spark\spark.properties
ECHO windowTakesFocus=false >> %USERPROFILE%\Spark\spark.properties
ECHO toasterPopup=true >> %USERPROFILE%\Spark\spark.properties
ECHO timeout=^5 >> %USERPROFILE%\Spark\spark.properties
ECHO xmppPort=1234 >> %USERPROFILE%\Spark\spark.properties
ECHO autoLoginEnabled=false >> %USERPROFILE%\Spark\spark.properties
ECHO showHistory=true >> %USERPROFILE%\Spark\spark.properties
ECHO showEmptyGroups=false >> %USERPROFILE%\Spark\spark.properties
ECHO server=127.0.0.1 >> %USERPROFILE%\Spark\spark.properties
ECHO chatNotificationOn=true >> %USERPROFILE%\Spark\spark.properties
ECHO downloadDirectory=C:%USERPROFILE%\Spark >> %USERPROFILE%\Spark\spark.properties
ECHO startHidden=false >> %USERPROFILE%\Spark\spark.properties
ECHO fileTransferTimeout=^1 >> %USERPROFILE%\Spark\spark.properties
ECHO passwordSaved=true >> %USERPROFILE%\Spark\spark.properties
ECHO spellCheckerEnabled=true >> %USERPROFILE%\Spark\spark.properties
ECHO defaultChatLengthTimeout=^15 >> %USERPROFILE%\Spark\spark.properties
We’‘ve rolled this out to about 90 users and it works fine almost every time (and when it doesn’‘t, running it from the login script a second time usually fixes it – if that doesn’‘t, we delete the application and profile directory, run the login script, and it’'s never failed after that).
It also works perfectly with roaming profiles. If a computer doesn’‘t have Spark installed, our login script installs it but doesn’'t modify their settings.
Any Chance we can get you to put some comments in to your install script to illustrate what does what functionality in case we want to deviate from some of the settings you have set in your environment. One that particularly interests me is the last property
ECHO defaultChatLengthTimeout=^15 >> %USERPROFILE%\Spark\spark.properties
Thanks
David,
Would an MSI installer solve this problem for you? How would you roll out the MSI, through Active Directory?
Regards,
Matt
An MSI would work perfect to do this. However, there is not an MSI file readily available and the process of creating an MSI is tedious and in most my experiences unsuccesful. If you could provide with a working MSI file Matt that would be GREAT!!
Hi Matt, thank you for your reply.
Yes, an MSI file would be incredibly useful - perfect for AD distribution - and something, I’'m sure, that others would like.
Also, no other Jabber client (open source) has an MSI, as far as I’'m aware, which would make you something of a market leader.
Regards,
David
All of the “ECHO” commands are basically just writing the Spark client settings. To be honest, I installed Spark on a different machine, configured the settings and then made the batch file echo those settings.
I assume the defaultChatLengthTimeout setting is how long it takes before chats go ‘‘stale’’ and are suggested by the client to be closed.
http://www.windowsnetworking.com/articles_tutorials/Group-Policy-Deploy-Applicat ions.html
may be of use? Not tried it, but reads well…
Ian
Hey all,
Please check out:
http://wiki.jivesoftware.org/display/SPARK/BetaMSIBuilds
We’'d appreciate feedback!
Regards,
Matt
I’'m just trying it at work now.
Thanks
Nope - MSI error (Group Policy cannot read the MSI).
Far too generic an error to be helpful though, I’'m sorry
THANK YOU! I really appreciate the MSI package effort. Also, thank you for not using InstallShield (or at least not a version that uses ISScript.msi)…
The package doesn’'t work properly for me… It gives me the following error:
Failed to load Main Class: org/jivesoftware/Spark.
But I’‘m quite excited to see that there’'s progress!
This is great. Even though the MSI doesn’‘t work it’‘s great to know it’'s on the to-do list. Oh and I used the MSI that included the JRE, just to clarify.
Won’'t even let me install from the MSI at all on a standalone machine. not gonna try deploying through AD yet.
the error I get is
“This installation package could not be opened. Contact the application vendor to verify that this is a valid Windows Installer package.”
Thanks again Matt
Message was edited by: dunnj33
Hi,
Got an MSI working - standalone machine, not tried any remote installs or anything, but does happy for me. So it may work or may not. Use at your own risk and do your own testing!
Used Advanced Installer 4.3 Freeware edition.
If anyone wants one then I’‘ve posted it at SecureIM as couldn’'t find a way to upload attachments to the forum. Not got time for supporting it, just a one off, but may help till an official one is sorted. Be there in about 15 min when its uploaded from my dopey upload speed at home!
I.
p.s. better to use matts if it works for you! (obviously!)
Message was edited by: ibradshaw
I was able to push Spark with my own MSI (built by Advanced Installer EE). It installs fine via GPO. I cannot for the life of me get aformentioned echo commands in the login script to create the spark.properties file. Any ideas? Need more info? Please help!
We’'re currently working on pushing out Spark 2.0.3 to the first ~100 (of 300) users in an AD environment. A simple batch script:
\spark_2_0_3_online.exe -q
seems to work, even when deploying as startup script in a GPO.
Also, we’‘ve gotten a startup script from BenWillcox for setting up the users, which has also worked back in 1.1.4, but haven’'t tested it yet here:
http://www.jivesoftware.org/community/thread.jspa?threadID=19489&start=54&tstart =100
But we would also LOVE an MSI implementation.
Will post more when we see how it runs across the entire network.
I used Advanced Installer to build a MSI for Spark deployment.
However, my attempts to get the batch script to create the spark.properties files upon login has been unsuccessful Must be a security settings because no matter what I do the script won’'t output the file spark.properties to %userprofile%\Spark
I’'m stumped.