Overview
There are two methods for including the CrashPlan app in a gold image and deploying it to user devices:
- Use a deployment policy with a custom user detection script that excludes the usernames of administrators deploying the CrashPlan app.
- Include only the installer files. Do not run the installer or otherwise install the app until after you deploy the gold image to a user device. The sequence is critical:
Considerations
- This article uses the term gold image to describe a template for imaging user devices that includes pre-configured operating system files, settings, and applications. Other names for this concept include base image, clone image, system image, and desktop image.
- Gold images and devices must meet CrashPlan app system requirements.
- For help with customization and scripts for CrashPlan app installers, contact your Customer Success Manager (CSM) to engage the Professional Services team.
Method 1: Exclude administrators in your custom user detection script
Excluding specific administrator users in the custom user detection script ensures the CrashPlan app waits to perform the installation until the end user signs in to the device.
Sample excerpts of customer user detection scripts with excluded administrator users are listed below. See Deployment script and command reference for complete details. If you need help customizing a script for your CrashPlan environment, contact your Customer Success Manager (CSM) to engage the Professional Services team.
Windows script excerpt
REM List of Excluded users that shouldn't be used for CrashPlan install.
FOR %%G IN ("user1"
"user2"
"user3"
"admin"
"Administrator") DO (
IF /I "%currentuser%"=="%%~G" GOTO NOMATCH
)
:NOMATCH
echo Excluded or null user detected (%currentuser%). Will retry user detection in 60 minutes, or when reboot occurs.
GOTO :EOF
Mac script excerpt
if [[ "$user" =~ ^(admin1|admin2|admin3)$ ]] || [[ -z "$user" ]]; then
writeLog "Excluded or null username detected ($user). Will retry user detection in 60 minutes, or when reboot occurs."
exit
Method 2: Deploy only the installer package
Deploying only the installer package to a gold image helps ensure that the CrashPlan app detects the correct user, because the installer is executed by the user and not the administrator who deployed the gold image.
Step 1: Get installer files for CrashPlan apps
There are multiple ways to install CrashPlan apps, depending on how you wish to authenticate users and devices when the app installs and connects to the CrashPlan cloud.
The article Manage app installations for CrashPlan describes three options.
Select one option, and follow the linked instructions until you are told to run an install command or installer executable.
- Do not run any install command or installer executable.
- Instead, proceed to Step 2: Copy your installer files to your gold image.
Option 1: Deploy CrashPlan apps silently with SSO
For a CrashPlan environment that uses SSO authentication, customize CrashPlan installers to connect and authenticate automatically. No user intervention is necessary.
Option 2: Install the default CrashPlan app
Use the default CrashPlan installer executable, with no customization. The app opens a desktop interface and prompts the user for:
- Username and password
- Registration key (the identifier for for your CrashPlan organization)
- Server address (the domain for the CrashPlan cloud)
Step 2: Copy your installer files to your gold image
How you copy your CrashPlan installer files onto your base image depends on your software management tool.
How many and which files you copy also depends on your situation:
- Installer executables are *.msi, *.dmg, or *.tgz files, depending on the image's operating system.
- Mac installations include a plain-text configuration file, deploy.properties.
- Installers are typically invoked with scripts that provide your custom command arguments.
Step 3: Deploy your gold image to your devices
How you deploy a base image to devices is outside the scope of this article. However, you must deploy the image before invoking the installer for the CrashPlan app.
Step 4: Run the CrashPlan app installers on your devices
Use a software management tool or the device operating system to launch a script or task that runs the CrashPlan app installer.
For SSO and manual sign on (options 1 and 2 above), the installer needs to run after a user logs in to the device, because the most recently logged in username becomes the name used to sign in to the CrashPlan app.