We are trying to install the Solarwinds Orion agent silently on Server 2012R2 in order to deploy it to servers but have a problem with the silent installation. If I open a Command Prompt and use the first command below, the installation fails. If I change the /qn to /qb as in the second example, the installation works but it is not silent, there is one screen shown and a UAC prompt that must be clicked on. msiexec /I Solarwinds-Agent.msi /qn TRANSFORMS=SolarWinds-Agent.mst msiexec /I Solarwinds-Agent.msi /qb TRANSFORMS=SolarWinds-Agent.mst If I create an installation log for each install example, the exit code is 0 for the /qb example, but for the /qn example it is Windows installer error status 1603. If I check under Program Files I see an empty folder was created for the software but nothing is placed in it. Should the /qn option work to install it silently, or is there another way to install it silently that I should try? Thanks.

Good deal. All that is left is how to load balance this Agents. We have a server team that builds servers the various projects that need them, and they use VMware system templates to build them. If we make the Agent part of the template for Windows servers, they will all go to the same polling engine. I tried change the polling engine in the manage nodes screen for multiple agents by selecting all of them an then going to edit properties in node manager, but that doesn't work . I cannot do it in the Manage Agents screen either. That is one advantage of not using agents, I can reassign multiple nodes to another polling engine with relative ease. We've grown the network footprint considerably in the last few months , and we're started to experience the growing pains of the increased network traffic. If there is a way to manually load balance the Agents similar to agent-less nodes, or if using a Virtual IP address and network load balance would work, then the idea using Windows agent becomes an easy sell to our management.

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Silent install of Solarwinds agent

jeffc

We are trying to install the Solarwinds Orion agent silently on Server 2012R2 in order to deploy it to servers but have a problem with the silent installation. If I open a Command Prompt and use the first command below, the installation fails.
If I change the /qn to /qb as in the second example, the installation works but it is not silent, there is one screen shown and a UAC prompt that must be clicked on.

msiexec /I Solarwinds-Agent.msi /qn TRANSFORMS=SolarWinds-Agent.mst

msiexec /I Solarwinds-Agent.msi /qb TRANSFORMS=SolarWinds-Agent.mst

 

If I create an installation log for each install example, the exit code is 0 for the /qb example, but for the /qn example it is Windows installer error status 1603. If I check under Program Files I see an empty folder was created for the software but nothing is placed in it.

 

Should the /qn option work to install it silently, or is there another way to install it silently that I should try? Thanks.

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aLTeReGo

Ensure that you are running the command prompt with elevated privileges. This error can occur when UAC is enabled and the command prompt is executed without right clicking and selecting 'Run as administrator'.

Run As.png

jeffc

Thanks, I was logged in with an account with Administrator rights but once I opened the command prompt with that option it works.

We would be deploying the software with a deployment tool so I'm not sure we will be able to deploy it silently, as BigFix uses a local service account and it also fails to install with that method.

aLTeReGo

BigFix runs under a local system account by default, which does have adequate permissions sufficient to perform this MSI installation task without interference from UAC. If you have opted to use a named user account for that the BigFix service runs under, you will need to ensure that UAC is disabled. This is required for any MSI which installs a Windows service that will run under the local system account like the Orion Agent.

http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21506066

“The IBM Bigfix Agents require full privileges on the local system to effectively do their jobs. On Windows the TEM Agent runs as the LocalSystem account and on Unix/Linux the agent runs as the root account. While it might be technically possible on some operating systems to change the agent's permissions, it is not recommended because the agent will require administrator/root privileges to do many tasks.”

FormerMember

Where did you find the Windows Agent installer? I am planning a mass deployment of the agent and cannot find documentation on installing it outside for Web console "add node" interface. Thanks!

jiri.tomek

If you go to "Settings -> Agent Settings -> Download Agent Software" you find it there. You can download installer alone but there is also support for mass deployment via GPO or other tools. You should find all the information on that download page.

FormerMember

Thanks for the tip. It's a start, but the documentation on that page is pretty sparse. If I posted all of my questions here, this thread would be come professional consultation, lol. I am look for the best practice way to push the agent to a few thousand Windows servers in about 30 AD domains while balancing the polling load across multiple polling engines. I'll probably need to engineer this myself, which is why I was looking for an authoritative document on deploying and managing the Windows agent.

Having the installer is a big step up from where I was yesterday.

aLTeReGo

From the Agent mass deployment page [Settings -> All Settings -> Agent Settings -> Download Agent Software -> Mass Deploy to Multiple Machines (e.g. Group Policy)] you can download the MST file which serves as an automated answer file for the MSI based on settings defined on this screen. This allows you to deploy the Agent via Group Policy, SolarWinds Patch Manager, or virtually any 3rd party software deployment solution which supports the MSI/MST file formats.