I had a pretty popular series of blogs entitled "How to deploy 120 Samsung Zero Clients without really trying?" That blog is years old and frankly nothing in technology remains the same for very long. In fact today, if I were to deploy those same 120 clients I'd do is completely different. With the newest Teradici Management Console version 1.5.30 you can now completely deploy your Zero Client environment and never actually touch them. This new feature is called Auto Config, and believe me, you SHOULD learn this. It'll save you time, lots of it.
Before we begin!
I want to point out that all Zero Clients automatically look for a DNS SRV record in the form of pcoip-tool, this SRV record points to the pcoip-mc A record DNS entry. Everything I say from hear on out assumes you are already using DNS SRV for having your devices automatically show up in your MC. If you aren't doing this, DO IT! Its a best practice for one, secondly what are you doing? Manually discoverying? Setting the DNS SRV takes about a minute and you'll never need to do a manual discovery again. Get moving!
What is AutoConfig?
AutoConfig is a new feature in the MC found under Groups - Manage AutoConfig:
Inside this area you basically have three fields to choose from, I'll start from the back:
IP Range: Here you set the IP range of the Zero Clients. Basically if the MC picks up a new ZC and if that ZC is in this range, we are going to automatically add it to this group.
Device Password: So we've chosen the range of IPs, now we need to type in what the passwords are for these Zero Clients. Meaning most manufactures set a default password, in my case I was using a Wyse P20 so the default password is "Administrator".
Group: Finally, we need to set the group that these devices, in this range, with this password are going to connect to.
Now make sure you check "Enable AutoConfig"
That's it, when your devices are discovered you'll notice they get automatically added to the group you specificed. To watch this process happen, click on "View AutoConfig Status" I had to shoot the video I'm about to share twice because I forgot to set the default password. Using this area showed me why it didn't work the first time around.
Setup the Group:
There is nothing new to review on the Group settings, basically a group ties to a profile. So long as your Group is joined to a profile then AutoConfig will automatically apply the profile to the Device. This could mean the device has to reset, take a look at your profile settings in order to tell if a reset will be required.
Setup the Profile:
There are a lot of new features put in the latest MC, however the coolest one is the ability to have the profile force a firmware version.
With this rule in place I basically ensure that all Zero Clients that are a part of this profile get updated to the firmware version I choose. This is very VERY cool.
All that is left is to setup all the other profile rules, most importantly, the correct View Connection Server, SSL, Verbose Logging, Auto-Launch if only one desktop, enable DHCP, DNS-SRV discovery, etc.
Truly Zero Zero Clients!
With those settings in place, you can now ship a boxed ZC to an end user and so long as they can plug a network jack, mouse, keyboard, and power cable in. All the management steps take care of themselves. You/The Administrator, never have to touch a ZC. And honestly isn't that the point!
Video:
To see a video of this in action click the link below!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBTQFTJfE4U
Gunnar Berger
VCP3, VCP4, VCA-DT, VCP-DT, CCNA, MCTS
