[Condor-users] condor installation using NAL under windows

["Dr Ian C. Smith" <i.c.smith@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear All,

This is really a follow up to the thread entitled "problems
with manual installation on win2k" but I thought it might be of
more general interest and the new subject makes it easier
to search for. To recap, I wanted to setup a Novell Application
Launcher (NAL) to ease the process of installing condor on large
numbers of PCs which are publically available to students at
the University. As of the last few weeks we have moved
from Win 2k to XP as the standard OS on these hosts.

I've attached the NAL template (*.AXT) file - this was obtained
by snap-shot'ing the Condor install shield process. The first part
is mostly taken up with additions required by condor to the
registry under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Condor. Below this are
are the commands to copy the various condor files over from the
Novell server to the PC. Note that our local configuration changes
have been made to condor_config on the server. There are two
other files copied over: start_condor.bat* and service.reg**. The
first is run by the NAL to install the condor service and the
second contains the registry changes needed to make this service
start automatically after a reboot. The .bat file runs the condor
install.exe to install the service then runs the Windows
regedit to make the registry changes. It then runs Window's net.exe
to start the service. Because ordinary users are not
allowed to poke around in the registry, the NAL object needs to be
set up to run start_condor.bat as a "secure system user" (the secure
part ensures that malicious users can't hack into the NAL while
it's running to gain priviledges).

If you have any comments I'd be glad to hear them. I'm more at
home digging around in /etc/init.d than the windows registry so
some of this may be uncessary obfuscation. Many thanks to all
who replied to original thread - the comments were very useful.

cheers,

-ian.

PS *renamed start_condor **renamed service: our SMTP server blocks
  executable attachments -- with good reason.

-----------------------------------
Dr Ian C. Smith,
e-Science team,
University of Liverpool
Computing Services Department,
Room 4.09, Chadwick Tower
Tel: ++44 (0)151 794 3745
e-mail: i.c.smith@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Attachment: programming_condor_V6_6_5.AXT
Description: Binary data

Attachment: start_condor
Description: Binary data

Attachment: services
Description: Binary data