Configure CCBoot v.3 to work in Active Directory
Hello!
This article will talk about CCBoot technology from Youngzsoft, which allows diskless boot of the operating system from a remotely located machine and runs in Active Directory.
Hello, I am a system administrator and I am lazy. I’m tired of suffering, adjusting the operating system every time a user accidentally deletes a system file or knocks down program settings. Therefore, I wondered if it was possible to load the operating system each time from the reference image, so that the user profile and documents were stored on the network, and all changes in the operating system itself were accordingly lost after each reboot. This would be the perfect solution for an internet cafe or game club.
A little googling, I found a solution that would suit me one hundred percent.
Youngzsoft Developed CCBoot, allowing diskless booting operating systems with iSCSI. A diskless computer is connected to the hard drive through a network and loads the operating system from a remotely located machine. CCBoot uses the fast-growing iSCSI protocol with gPXE diskless boot technology.
It is not a trivial task to configure CCBoot for diskless loading of clients and their work in Active Directory.
To work, we need a raised and configured domain controller, as well as a server with CCBoot, a client reference machine and diskless machines with PXE support that will perform diskless booting over the network.
If you install the CCBoot server on a domain controller, then in the CCBoot server, click “Options” -> “DHCP Settings” and make sure that the CCBoot server address matches the address of the DNS server.
In my test environment, the CCBoot server was raised in a virtual machine running Windows Server 2008 Ent R2 SP1 (IP: 10.7.1.19) on a Hyper-V server. And the domain controller is a physical server running Windows Server 2003 Ent R2 SP2 (IP: 10.0.0.11), where DHCP and DNS services were raised. Accordingly, my DHCP Settings look like this:
Next, we need to add our CCBoot client to the reservation on our DHCP server. Open the DHCP snap-in, create a reservation to the address 10.7.1.51, and on the right side of the snap-in window specify points 066 and 067 according to the figure below, where 10.7.1.19 is the address of our CCBoot server.
On the CCBoot server, we select the desired client (IP: 10.7.1.51), from which we want to log in to our domain, go to its properties, check the box “Enable Upload Image”. Make sure that the CCBoot server address is correct: 10.7.1.19.
We set up our reference machine, install drivers and necessary software.
Do not forget to optimize both the client and the server for the purpose of faster operation of this solution, using the recommendations offered by Youngzsoft.
Install the latest CCBoot client with Active Directory support, click “Install Client”.
We agree to install drivers from an unverified publisher.
After installing the client, restart the computer.
After loading the operating system, run CCBootPNP.exe, which is located in the folder with the client installed. Click “Install Known NIC”, set the “Select All” checkbox, then restart the computer.
We start CCBootClient, set the name of our image in the “Image File Name” field, in the “Server IP Address” field specify the address of our CCBoot server: 10.7.1.19. Click the “Upload Image” button and wait for the image to be downloaded to our server to complete.
Next, go to the properties of the client machine on the CCBoot server and set the checkmark next to “Keep Write-back”. In the window that appears, the question "Do you want to delete Write-Back? »We answer in the affirmative.
Run CCBootClient, click “Install AD” and wait for confirmation. Next, enter this machine into the domain. After confirming that the machine is entered into the domain, turn it off.
We go to the CCBoot server, in the installation folder we find the file “CCBootAD.exe” and run it. Click “Add” and add our computer. My test machine name is CCBOOTWIN7TEST.
After manipulating the CCBootAD.exe utility in the ADUC snap-in in the machine description, we will see CCBoot Domain User.
In the properties of the machine on the CCBoot server, we change the name of the machine from PC051 to CCBOOTWIN7TEST.
After downloading the image from the reference test machine to the CCBoot server, open Disk Manager on the server. It can be seen that the new image appeared in the New upload disk group.
Next, we need to indicate that our machine will need to be loaded from the newly created image. We open Client Manager and in the properties of the client machine we specify in the Disk Group field the group we need - New upload disk group.
If we have several groups indicated, when loading the server will ask us which image to load from which group. Click the “>>” button and make sure that our group has one image - win7x86.vhd.
Next, you need to tell the machine that it can join the domain.
Starting with version 3, CCBoot allows us to run commands from batch files automatically when the client boots.
We go to the folder on the server where CCBoot is installed, then to the “Cmd” folder. Here we can create a batch file that will be used by clients when downloading. If the file name is “public.txt”, all clients will use it. If the file name matches the IP address of the client, this client will use the commands from this batch file. If both files are located in the “Cmd” folder, the client will use a file with a name corresponding to its IP address.
Create a file 10.7.1.51.txt and add the line “Join domain.com” to it, where domain.com is the name of our domain.
We go into the server properties and make sure that a checkmark is set opposite the “Run batch Command at Client”.
Now we disconnect the hard drive from the test computer, in BIOS we set the download over the network. The CCBoot server sees our machine, Windows 7 starts to boot. You will be prompted to download the recovery console or select the usual Windows boot. We select the usual boot, wait for the login window to appear, log in as a domain user and make sure that the domain is visible and the available network resources. We are shutting down the system.
Go to the client properties on the CCBoot server, click the “Save to Image” button, confirm, uncheck the “Keep Write-back” checkbox, save the changes.
Now, every time the operating system boots up, the client receives a reference image with customized software, which we can change at any time. Personal data can be stored through roaming profiles by setting up group policies accordingly. The speed of loading the operating system over the network is comparable to the speed of loading the system from the hard drive. However, you can significantly increase the download speed over the network if you store images on SSD-hard drives using a gigabit network, etc.
This article will talk about CCBoot technology from Youngzsoft, which allows diskless boot of the operating system from a remotely located machine and runs in Active Directory.
Background
Hello, I am a system administrator and I am lazy. I’m tired of suffering, adjusting the operating system every time a user accidentally deletes a system file or knocks down program settings. Therefore, I wondered if it was possible to load the operating system each time from the reference image, so that the user profile and documents were stored on the network, and all changes in the operating system itself were accordingly lost after each reboot. This would be the perfect solution for an internet cafe or game club.
A little googling, I found a solution that would suit me one hundred percent.
Youngzsoft Developed CCBoot, allowing diskless booting operating systems with iSCSI. A diskless computer is connected to the hard drive through a network and loads the operating system from a remotely located machine. CCBoot uses the fast-growing iSCSI protocol with gPXE diskless boot technology.
It is not a trivial task to configure CCBoot for diskless loading of clients and their work in Active Directory.
What is necessary?
To work, we need a raised and configured domain controller, as well as a server with CCBoot, a client reference machine and diskless machines with PXE support that will perform diskless booting over the network.
If you install the CCBoot server on a domain controller, then in the CCBoot server, click “Options” -> “DHCP Settings” and make sure that the CCBoot server address matches the address of the DNS server.
In my test environment, the CCBoot server was raised in a virtual machine running Windows Server 2008 Ent R2 SP1 (IP: 10.7.1.19) on a Hyper-V server. And the domain controller is a physical server running Windows Server 2003 Ent R2 SP2 (IP: 10.0.0.11), where DHCP and DNS services were raised. Accordingly, my DHCP Settings look like this:
Next, we need to add our CCBoot client to the reservation on our DHCP server. Open the DHCP snap-in, create a reservation to the address 10.7.1.51, and on the right side of the snap-in window specify points 066 and 067 according to the figure below, where 10.7.1.19 is the address of our CCBoot server.
On the CCBoot server, we select the desired client (IP: 10.7.1.51), from which we want to log in to our domain, go to its properties, check the box “Enable Upload Image”. Make sure that the CCBoot server address is correct: 10.7.1.19.
We set up our reference machine, install drivers and necessary software.
Do not forget to optimize both the client and the server for the purpose of faster operation of this solution, using the recommendations offered by Youngzsoft.
Install the latest CCBoot client with Active Directory support, click “Install Client”.
We agree to install drivers from an unverified publisher.
After installing the client, restart the computer.
After loading the operating system, run CCBootPNP.exe, which is located in the folder with the client installed. Click “Install Known NIC”, set the “Select All” checkbox, then restart the computer.
We start CCBootClient, set the name of our image in the “Image File Name” field, in the “Server IP Address” field specify the address of our CCBoot server: 10.7.1.19. Click the “Upload Image” button and wait for the image to be downloaded to our server to complete.
Next, go to the properties of the client machine on the CCBoot server and set the checkmark next to “Keep Write-back”. In the window that appears, the question "Do you want to delete Write-Back? »We answer in the affirmative.
Run CCBootClient, click “Install AD” and wait for confirmation. Next, enter this machine into the domain. After confirming that the machine is entered into the domain, turn it off.
We go to the CCBoot server, in the installation folder we find the file “CCBootAD.exe” and run it. Click “Add” and add our computer. My test machine name is CCBOOTWIN7TEST.
After manipulating the CCBootAD.exe utility in the ADUC snap-in in the machine description, we will see CCBoot Domain User.
In the properties of the machine on the CCBoot server, we change the name of the machine from PC051 to CCBOOTWIN7TEST.
After downloading the image from the reference test machine to the CCBoot server, open Disk Manager on the server. It can be seen that the new image appeared in the New upload disk group.
Next, we need to indicate that our machine will need to be loaded from the newly created image. We open Client Manager and in the properties of the client machine we specify in the Disk Group field the group we need - New upload disk group.
If we have several groups indicated, when loading the server will ask us which image to load from which group. Click the “>>” button and make sure that our group has one image - win7x86.vhd.
Next, you need to tell the machine that it can join the domain.
Starting with version 3, CCBoot allows us to run commands from batch files automatically when the client boots.
We go to the folder on the server where CCBoot is installed, then to the “Cmd” folder. Here we can create a batch file that will be used by clients when downloading. If the file name is “public.txt”, all clients will use it. If the file name matches the IP address of the client, this client will use the commands from this batch file. If both files are located in the “Cmd” folder, the client will use a file with a name corresponding to its IP address.
Create a file 10.7.1.51.txt and add the line “Join domain.com” to it, where domain.com is the name of our domain.
We go into the server properties and make sure that a checkmark is set opposite the “Run batch Command at Client”.
Now we disconnect the hard drive from the test computer, in BIOS we set the download over the network. The CCBoot server sees our machine, Windows 7 starts to boot. You will be prompted to download the recovery console or select the usual Windows boot. We select the usual boot, wait for the login window to appear, log in as a domain user and make sure that the domain is visible and the available network resources. We are shutting down the system.
Go to the client properties on the CCBoot server, click the “Save to Image” button, confirm, uncheck the “Keep Write-back” checkbox, save the changes.
Result
Now, every time the operating system boots up, the client receives a reference image with customized software, which we can change at any time. Personal data can be stored through roaming profiles by setting up group policies accordingly. The speed of loading the operating system over the network is comparable to the speed of loading the system from the hard drive. However, you can significantly increase the download speed over the network if you store images on SSD-hard drives using a gigabit network, etc.