In Part 1 of this series we got our AD and SCCM servers ready, and then we installed System Center 2012 Configuration Manager as a standalone Primary site. In Part 2 we configured the SCCM server further by adding some Windows Server roles necessary for the following Configuration Manager 2012 functionality, Software Update Point (SUP) and Operating System Deployment. In Part 3 we configured the server further by Enabling some Discovery methods and creating Boundary's and Boundary Groups. Now we are ready to configure Client Settings, Add roles and Distribute the Configmgr Client to our Computers.
Step 1. Add the Application Catalog Web Site Roles
Perform the following on the Configuration Manager server as SMSadmin
In Administration, click on Servers and Site System Roles and right click on our Site Server, choose Add Site System Roles.
Note: If you are using a multi-site hierarchy setup (CAS + Primaries), you need to perform the following on your Primary site(s) as the roles listed below won't be available for CAS. For a Standalone setup perform the following on your standalone primary.
click next at the wizard general screen
Select both of the Application Catalog roles
confirm your Application Catalog Web service point selections
and the Application Catalog Website Point settings
enter your Organisation name and pick a Color scheme for the Application Catalog ! (New since Beta 2) !
click next through the summary and progress screens, verify everything at the completion screen.
Step 2. Configure Client Agent Settings
Perform the following on the SCCM server as SMSadmin
Note: You can configure custom client settings applicable for each site in your hierarchy by creating custom client settings on that Primary site, or if you want settings applied to all your computers in your hierarchy you can edit the Default Client Settings (on your CAS site).
In the Administration section click on Client Settings in the left pane, and select the Default Client Settings listed, right click choose Properties
Click on Client Policy and we'll set this to every 15 minutes as it's a LAB (the Default setting is 60 minutes), this means that once every 15 minutes the Client will contact it's Management Point for any new policy.
now choose Computer Agent and configure it as follows:-
Click on Set Website for Default Application Catalog Website and set it to select the FQDN one that is listed
Set Add default Application Catalog website to Internet Explorer trusted zone to True
Set the Organization Name Displayed in Software Center to My Organization (change that to suit your organization)
so your Computer Agent settings should look like this
Set the Software updates schedule from 7 days to 1 day, this will be because we want to synchronize Endpoint Protection definition updates on a daily basis.
Select User and Device Affinity and change Allow users to define their primary device to True.
click Ok to save the Client Agent Settings.
Step 3. Deploying the Client Agent
Perform the following on the SCCM server as SMSadmin
Note: In a Multi-site Hierarchy (CAS+Primaries) you will need to configure client installation settings on the primaries as CAS does not manage clients and the options will therefore be greyed out on the CAS.
Now that we have made changes to the Default Client settings, we want to deploy the ConfigMgr Client to our computers in the LAB. Before doing so we need to decide what method is appropriate for installing the client on our computers.
The following methods are available
Client Installation Method Description
- Client push installation - Automatically installs the client to assigned resources and manually installs the client to resources that are not assigned.
- Software update point installation - Installs the client by using the Configuration Manager 2012 software updates feature.
- Group Policy installation - Installs the client by using Windows Group Policy.
- Logon script installation - Installs the client by using a logon script.
- Manual installation - Manually installs the client software.
- Upgrade installation - Upgrades clients to a newer version by using Configuration Manager 2012 application management. You can also use Configuration Manager 2007 software distribution to upgrade clients to Configuration Manager 2012.
- Client Imaging - Prestages the client installation in an operating system image.
Please refer to Technet to Determine the Client Installation Method to Use in Configuration Manager 2012.
For the purposes of this LAB we will select Client Push Installation. Make sure to review the Client deployment Prerequisites on Technet, in particular pay attention to the Firewall Ports used during client push installation.
Note: we will use the ClientInstall account to install the configmgr client on our computers, make sure that this account is a local administrator on your target computers.
In Administration, click on Site Configuration, Sites, select our site, in the ribbon above click on Settings, it will open a new menu, from that menu select Client Installation Settings and from there select Client Push Installation.
On the general screen, place a checkmark in Enable Automatic site-wide client push installation
Click on the Accounts tab, and select the yellow star, choose New Account
type in (or browse to select the AD user) the Client Push account, use our ClientInstall account which we created in Active Directory in Part 1.
Note the Verify button, this is new since Beta 2 and allows you to verify that the credentials can connect to your network resources, if you get your password wrong it will tell you !
Click on Verify and type in a Unc path to check.
Click Ok.
Click on Assets and Compliance and expand Devices, All Systems, you should see that our SCCM server has a client installed but our Domain Controller does not.
Note: If the site server cannot contact the client computer or start the setup process, it automatically repeats the installation attempt every hour for up to 7 days until it succeeds.
You can wait until Client push installs the client or manually install it right now by Right clicking on the Domain Controller and choose Install Client.
set the Installation Options
click next through the wizard, close. Meanwhile, on the DC (AD1-Domain Controller) check task manager, and you'll see ccmsetup starting...success
after some minutes the client is installed and you can refresh the view, you'll notice is says Client=Yes on both our systems in the Lab and there are new tabs to look at since beta 2 on the bottom of the screen. We'll get to them in a later post.
On your AD computer you can start Software Center
click on Find applications from the application catalog
and your Application Catalog will pop up in Green !
