Hello again, it’s been a while since my last guide for OCS Inventory NG but since OCS Inventory team released version 2.5 I decided to update my guide, well rewrite it from the scratch, actually so we can enjoy the new version!
What will be needed:
- Access to the Internet – yes, that’s obvious, but still – worth mentioning
- A debian distribution, net install is fine: https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current/amd64/iso-cd/
- Valid SSL certificate for the server (few tips regarding dns names etc later)
- Physical or Virtual Machine(strongly advised) with at least 2GB RAM and 20GB HDD, 1 CPU is fine
- One test PC or VM
- Ocs Inventory Agent, OCS Packager and OCS Inventory NG Server. All can be downloaded from OCS Inventory GitHub Project in Releases sections.
After completing this guide you will have fully working OCS Inventory NG server version 2.5 with agent installed and OCS Agent Package ready. Also, all communication will be done using SSL(yes – all, including inventory, deployment info and deployment fragments!), so data will be secured.
Steps that will be performed:
- Install newest version of Debian and upgrade
- Install Apache and MySQL, tools and packages
- Install OCS Inventory NG server and configure
- Enable SSL
- Final touch
- Prepare OCS Agent Package and deploy it
I am not adding LDAP/Active Directory authentication yet but can be enabled later. We will see.
You can think that there is quite a lot to do but doing this in test environment took me around 20 minutes(well, after almost 10 tries, tests formats etc.). So if you follow my guide to the line, you should have fully working OCS NG Inventory server in less than 30 minutes!
Ok, so let’s start!
Hi! Love your tutorials. Really in-depth and with the describing text really makes alot more sence than alot of other How-To’s out there! Keep up the good work :). I see you have Nagios setup aswell, any good reason for going for Nagios vs Zabbix?
Hello Trond, Thanks for your comment! I just write them in a way I could make use of them after a while:) Regarding Nagios vs Zabbix – to be honest I never used Zabbix so I cannot tell which is better. I used Nagios in one of my early jobs and thought that it’s quite good. These days there are many more like Grafana with all the plugins and others as well.
Really Nice Tutorial thank you!
Can you maybe add a Tutorial for Deploying via GPO.
I tried using the PSExec but somehow it does not work. If I run the “OcsPackage.exe” as Admin it works but without this its does not work.
And somehow there should be a easy solution completely via GPO + Deployment Tool.
Thanks!
It’s actually pretty easy! You build a ocspackage.exe using ocs packager tool, place it somewhere on the net like sysvol/scripts and then create a new gpo with scheduled task set to run only once at specific time and run asap when schedule is missed. then task will be removed after run.
trigger can be any, command line will be ocspackage.exe and that’s it! 🙂
And whats with the Rights Management?
Normal users cant install a Service…?
Maybe im wrong but isnt the Goal to install the Service everywhere?
yes, when you create a task to deploy agent, create it to run with highest privileges as well as set “NT Authority\SYSTEM” as executing user. Also, set the task to run immediately. Then OCS will install as service no matter what user is currently logged on.