Installing Client on non-domain machines.

[simonwhitelock]

I have about 65 machines that are missing the SMS Client on my LAN. They all fall within the subnet boundarys defined, but the client hasnt installed because these machines (most NT and Win2K) are not members of the domain but members of a local workgroup.

Most of these machines belong to the development and testing department and need to remain in there own workgroups for testing reasons.

I understand the SMS Client is failing to install because of authentication issues, however, can I get away with adding a local user on the machines concerned with the same username and password that SMS uses to install the client with thus giving it local admin rights? or will that still fail as the machines are still not in the domains specified within SMS?

Has anyone else managed to work around this problem?

If it is possible, do you know which account SMS uses to initially install the client with, is it SMSCLIENT_sitename or SMSSERVER_sitename ?

Any thoughts on this would be much appreciated, because currently only 70% of my LAN is being monitored by SMS and I need to start using SMS for software audits (not using software metering, its rubbish.. Just gonna export data from a query detailing all software and analyse it in Access)...

 

[Stormer]

Have you tried installing the SMS Client manually on these machines? To do this connect to \\sever_name\SMSLOGON\x86.bin\00000409 ( SP2 ) and run smsman.exe. Don't specify a site server let the client find one itself ( site boundries ) once it has installed wait for a bit and the components should start downloading. I have found for WinNT/2K this happens much quicker if you are logged on with Local Admin Rights.

 

[simonwhitelock]

Stormer: I have tried to manually install the client on these machines but they dont find the siteserver automatically or manually either.

 

[simonwhitelock]

I have discovered that my test machine I was trying to install the client onto (which was a PDC in its own domain) still failed if I tried to install the client manually (I assume it was looking for a CAP on its local domain), but, the client did install automatically (through network discovery) as I had listed the domain in the SMS Server network discovery properties... Still not sure which user account SMS used as I had all listed as local admin on the machine concerned.....

and how this will help me with machines within a workgroup that require a manual client installation on each...

 

[phanjazm]

Did you find out anything else on the topic of installing the sms client on machines that are part of a workgroup and not a domain? I'm STUCK on what to do.

 

[Jpoandl]

OK...its fully supported to install the SMS client on workgroup servers.. here's how (assuming we are talking about SMS 2.0)

1) Make sure that your workgroup servers fall into the subnet boundaries of your SMS site.

2) Add the appropriate SMS client Installation Accounts into each SMS site. Right click you SMS site and choose PROPERTIES. In the first tab you will see SMS Client Installation Accounts. You can list more then one here... The trick is to insert the correct syntax...and here it is: %machinename%\USERNAME "%machinename%" tells SMS that we are talking about a local server account and not a domain account. So if you have a local admin account called SADMIN on each workgroup server, you would enter this %machinename%\SADMIN.

3)Make sure that you enable Windows NT Remote Client Installation method. This needs to be enabled.

As easy as 1 two 3. you may still have problems installing the client. But if you read the error messages on the client as well as in your SMSINBOXES/SMSRETRY bucket, you'll be able to see why the install isn't taking place. Most reasons include: ADmin$ not available (start the server service), resolution problems (configure central WINS server or add lmhost files), user account disabled or missing on client server...

-hope this helps...

Joseph L. Poandl
MCSE 2003

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