Deploy McAfee Agent Automatically

[Former Member]

I have a question as to whether or not the McAfee Agent should automatically deploy to machines when they check in if they have a lower version of the agent.  I'm trying to get version 4.5 of the agent installed on all our workstations, but I'm having to do it manually, but there must be some way to have the machines automatically update when they check-in with ePO.  I have a Client Task setup under My Organization with the following summary:

Name:	EPO Agent Upgrade
Notes:	No notes available
Type:	Product Deployment (McAfee Agent )
Schedule:	Start date: 2/14/08 12:00 PM End date: No end date Schedule type: Run immediately

The task is setup to install the McAfee Agent 4.5 from the current branch and it's set to run immediately.  All the groups below my organization inherit the task.  Am I missing something, is there some extra step that I need to perform so that when agents check-in if they're running a lower version (4.0 for example) they will automatically upgrade to the new version.  Is this possible or do agents have to be manually upgraded by clicking the "Deploy Agents" button in the ePO console.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Jim

[kink80]

Jim,

That should work the way you have set it up. Is the task enabled? Do you have any other tasks created that deploy the agent below the My Organization level?What version of EPO Server are you running?

[Former Member]

Yes, the task is enabled and there are no other tasks below My Organization that deploy the agent.  I'm running EPO 4.0 Build 1333.  Any ideas?

Thanks,

[Former Member]

As far as I understand, when you make the task to run immediatley, this task will only run once on a system (immediatley after the system checks in after the task is added, or when a system moves to that group and checks in). But if anything goes wrong or for some reason, it won't ever try to run it again (unless you change the task or move groups after wakeups).

You can keep that task in there, but also try and add an additional task which runs (for example) 30 minutes after logon.

[Former Member]

That makes sense I guess, all of the systems were already in the console so perhaps they already performed the task and since it was never changed they haven't picked it up again.  I'll try adding a new task that run 30 mminutes after logon to see if that helps with the upgrades.

Thanks for the help.

[Former Member]

when upgrading from 4.0 to 4.5 make sure the task only runs on windows operating systems xp or greater, 4.5 does not work with server 2000 as far as i know, i think 2000 workstations wont either.

we migrated to 4.5 and the 2000 servers just wouldnt follow.

wish i knew more to help you.

if you use an AD environment, you could push the agent installs that way i believe.

[Former Member]

Thanks for the tip.  We don't have any 2000 boxes (server or workstation) anymore so that shouldn't be a problem.  I did use a software deployment application to push out the agent to some remote computers but for ones on-site I'd prefer to not have to manually manage their agent installs.  I did end up changing the task to run daily for about a week and it's been working.  Went from over 100 machines that needed to be upgraded and now I'm down to just over 40 and I think the number will continue to go down when more agents check-in.

Thanks for all the help.