This is the post where it all comes together, and we pull down the offline repo to the endpoint and call DCU to install the updates.
Dell Command Update Offline Repo Series
Part 1: Dell Command Update – Leveraging with ConfigMgr – Offline Repo Overview
Part 2: Dell Command Update – Create Custom Catalog for Offline Repo
Part 3: Dell Command Update – Creating the Offline Repo Content
[You are Here] Part 4
In this Demo, I’m running it in a fully deployed OS to make testing quick and easy. The TS module is available in my Software Center, where I can trigger it and watch. Once this is done, I’d add the module into the OSD task Sequence, or IPU task sequence after the OS has been installed, and you’re running in the Full OS. However, this is also another example of how you can run DCU with offline repos on already deployed devices in your environment.
Before you get worried that my steps get complicated and there is a lot of code here, I have everything available to download, TS Export Included, so just import and test.
DCU Offline Task Sequence (185 downloads )NOTE, feel free to just create your own DCU package and install it during the TS instead of relying on the one that is in the Offline Repo, which you’ll see more about later in this post. Creating your own DCU package manually can simplify things and give you better version control.
Task Sequence Steps
Download the Repo Package to TS working Directory and set path as Variable Drivers
Then we’re going to look for that Catalog XML file and update the baseLocation to where the content was downloaded in the Task Sequence working directory using the variable Driver01
Next we install Dell Command Update and Dell Command Monitor using the installs in your Offline Repo, so if you didn’t include applications in your Offline Repo Catalog, this isn’t going to work so well.
Run Dell Command Update Step. I’m using a bit of a complex powershell script to run it, as I like to add logging, and progress ui bar. You can do this MUCH more simple.
All you really need to do is 3 things:
- First you need to configure your DCU to use the XML Catalog provided
- dcu-cli.exe /configure –catalogLocation=XMLFilePath –allowXML=enable
- Second you run DCU to apply the Updates
- dcu-cli.exe /applyUpdates -reboot=disable
- Third, you undo your changes, so it will be defaulted post OSD
- dcu-cli.exe /configure -restoreDefaults
You can make a pretty simple process to do all of that, either by creating a command line per step, or a simple powershell / batch script. However, I like to go overboard and make it pretty and add logging, so I have a bigger PS script so I can gather the locations, provide logging in the SMSTS log (and other logs), and have the TSProgressUI show the progress, because I like to have it showing things.
Installed items before running the TS:
Running the Task Sequence
I’m enabling Debug Mode just for demo purposes, this is great during test, but of course, remove the Enable TSDebugMode step before moving into full scale testing and production.
Here we see the TS downloading the Repo Package, it sets the DRIVERS01 variable to the location in the TS working directory (c:\_SMSTaskSequence\Packages\2CM00014)
Now we move on to the step to update the XML file so that DCU knows where the Repo will be located, this all looks good according to the log. It updated the XML file from c:\Drivers\UpdateRepo to c:\_SMSTaskSequence\Packages\2CM00014.
Next, the Task Sequence runs the Step to Install Dell Command Update, by looking through the Offline Repo, and installing it from there. This is the step I suggest you think about for your environment, you can do it like I do it, or you can create your own dedicated DCU Package / Installer and replace this step with.
Now I go ahead and install Dell Command Monitor, this is completely optional, I just know a lot of folks use it.
Now is the Magic Step of running DCU, this really needs a video, so perhaps I’ll add that later. Just to prove this works offline, I set a bogus proxy and the device can’t get to the internet.
And the log:
Alright, so that’s pretty slick right! You are now able to build your offline Dell Repo, put it in a package, and deploy to machines that don’t have internet access, or even if they do, you’re in full control of the content, so it can peer, leverage BranchCache, and other tools you’re using.
Next on the list is to show how to automate a chunk of this. I mean, you can’t automate creating the catalog file and download of the catalog zip, but once you have that zip, you can automate the rest, and I’ll show you how and give you all the code.
GARYTOWN