Preparing the agent’s deployment

In this and the following sections, you will find out how to set up a Group Policy object to deploy Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Agent for Windows onto machines in an entire domain or in its organizational unit.

Every time a machine logs on to the domain, the resulting Group Policy object will ensure that the agent is installed and operational on the machine. 

  Prerequisites

Before proceeding with agent deployment, make sure that:

  • You have an Active Directory domain with a domain controller running Microsoft Windows Server 2003 or later.
  • You are a member of the Domain Admins group in the domain.
  • You know the license key or the name or IP address of a machine where Acronis License Server is installed.
  • You have a machine running Windows, with Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Console installed on it.

Step 1: Extracting installation packages

You need to create a shared folder that will contain the agent’s installation package (provided as an .msi file), and extract the package there.

  1. On the domain controller (or any other machine in the domain), create a folder—for example: D:\Acronis
  2. Start the Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 setup program.
  3. Click Extract installation files.
  4. Select the Agent for Windows (AcronisAgentWindows.msi) check box.
  5. If you are installing Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Deduplication, select the Deduplication (AcronisDeduplication.msi) check box.
  6. If you are installing Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Universal Restore, select the Universal Restore (AcronisUniversalRestore.msi) check box.

    Note: In Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Advanced Server Virtual Edition, the Universal Restore feature is already enabled, so you do not need to install it separately.

  7. In Extract to, type the name of the folder that you just created, or click Browse and select the folder.
  8. Click Extract.
  9. Share the folder where you placed the installation packages. Make sure that domain users can access the shared folder—for example, by leaving the default sharing settings for Everyone.

Step 2: Configuring the agent’s installation package

Important: Skip this step when reinstalling or updating the agent.

You need to configure the agent’s installation package by running the configuration script, which is installed along with the management console. By default, the script is located in the folder %ProgramFiles%\Acronis\BackupAndRecoveryConsole. If the management console is installed on a different machine, you can simply copy the configuration script from that machine.

The configuration script creates a transform (also known as a modification, a modification file, or an .mst file) for the installation package.

  1. In the Start menu, click Run, and then type: cmd
  2. Click OK.
  3. Change the current folder to the one where the configuration script mst_gen.vbs is located, by running commands such as:

    C:
    cd “C:\Program Files\Acronis\BackupAndRecoveryConsole”

  4. Run the configuration script.

    For example, the following command creates a transform for the file D:\Acronis\Acronis\AgentWindows.msi and uses licenses for the Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Advanced Server edition from the license server installed on mylicensesrv; the agent will run under the user account mydomain\AgentUser:

    mst_gen.vbs /msi_path D:\Acronis\AgentWindows.msi /license_server mylicensesrv /product AS /account mydomain\AgentUser MyPassWd

    Note: You must include a complete path to the installation package, even if the package is in the same folder as the configuration script.

For the complete syntax of the configuration script, see Configuration script parameters.

The agent’s installation package is ready for deployment. You now need to create a Group Policy object, as described in Setting up the Group Policy object.

Preparing the agent’s deployment