Opsi (open PC server integration) is a software distribution and management system for

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

clients, based on

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...

servers. Opsi is developed and maintained by uib GmbH from

Mainz Mainz () is the capital and largest city of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. Mainz is on the left bank of the Rhine, opposite to the place that the Main (river), Main joins the Rhine. Downstream of the confluence, the Rhine flows to the north-we ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

. The main parts of Opsi are

open-source license An open-source license is a type of license for computer software and other products that allows the source code, blueprint or design to be used, modified and/or shared under defined terms and conditions. This allows end users and commercial compa ...

d under the

GNU Affero General Public License The GNU Affero General Public License (GNU AGPL) is a free, copyleft license published by the Free Software Foundation in November 2007, and based on the GNU General Public License, version 3 and the Affero General Public License. The Free So ...

Features

The key features of opsi are: * Automated operating system installation (OS deployment) * Software distribution *

Patch Patch or Patches may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media * Patch Johnson, a fictional character from ''Days of Our Lives'' * Patch (''My Little Pony''), a toy * "Patches" (Dickey Lee song), 1962 * "Patches" (Chairmen of the Board song) ...

management * Inventory (hardware and software) * License Management / Software Asset Management * Support of multiple locations A tool for automated installations is important and necessary for standardization, maintainability and cost saving of larger PC networks. Opsi supports the client operating systems MS

Windows XP Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct upgrade to its predecessors, Windows 2000 for high-end and ...

Server 2003 Server may refer to: Computing *Server (computing), a computer program or a device that provides functionality for other programs or devices, called clients Role * Waiting staff, those who work at a restaurant or a bar attending customers and su ...

Windows Vista Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, which was released five years before, at the time being the longest time span between successive releases of ...

Server 2008 Windows Server 2008 is the fourth release of the Windows Server operating system produced by Microsoft as part of the Windows NT family of the operating systems. It was released to manufacturing on February 4, 2008, and generally to retail on Fe ...

Windows 7 Windows 7 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generally available on October 22, 2009. It is the successor to Windows Vista, released nearly ...

, Server 2008R2, Server 2012,

Windows 8.1 Windows 8.1 is a release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on August 27, 2013, and broadly released for retail sale on October 17, 2013, about a year after the retail release of its pre ...

, Server 2012 R12 and

Windows 10 Windows 10 is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It is the direct successor to Windows 8.1, which was released nearly two years earlier. It was released to manufacturing on July 15, 2015, and later to retail on J ...

. The 32- and the 64-bit versions are supported. For the installation of an opsi-server there are packages available for the Linux distributions

Debian Debian (), also known as Debian GNU/Linux, is a Linux distribution composed of free and open-source software, developed by the community-supported Debian Project, which was established by Ian Murdock on August 16, 1993. The first version of D ...

Ubuntu Ubuntu ( ) is a Linux distribution based on Debian and composed mostly of free and open-source software. Ubuntu is officially released in three editions: ''Desktop'', ''Server'', and ''Core'' for Internet of things devices and robots. All the ...

, SLES,

Univention Corporate Server Univention Corporate Server (UCS) is a server operating system derived from Debian with an integrated management system for the central and cross-platform administration of servers, services, clients, desktops and users as well as virtualized comp ...

CentOS CentOS (, from Community Enterprise Operating System; also known as CentOS Linux) is a Linux distribution that provides a free and open-source community-supported computing platform, functionally compatible with its upstream source, Red Hat En ...

RHEL Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is a commercial open-source Linux distribution developed by Red Hat for the commercial market. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is released in server versions for x86-64, Power ISA, ARM64, and IBM Z and a desktop version ...

and

OpenSuse openSUSE () is a free and open-source software, free and open source RPM Package Manager, RPM-based Linux distribution developed by the openSUSE project. The initial release of the community project was a beta version of SUSE Linux 10.0. Addi ...

Automated operating system installation

Via management interface a client may be selected for OS-Installation. If the client boots via

PXE PXE may refer to: * Preboot Execution Environment, booting computers via a network * Proof and Experimental Establishment, an Indian defense laboratory * Pseudoxanthoma elasticum, a genetic disease * Pentium Extreme Edition, a variant of Pentium D ...

it loads a

boot image A boot image is a type of disk image (a computer file containing the complete contents and structure of a storage medium). When it is transferred onto a boot device it allows the associated hardware to boot. The ''boot image'' usually includes th ...

from the opsi-depotserver. This bootimage prepares the hard disk, copies the required installation files, drivers and the opsi client agent and starts finally an unattended OS-Installation. Opsi uses the automatic detection of the necessary drivers for PCI-, HD-Audio- and USB-Devices. OS-installation via

Disk image A disk image, in computing, is a computer file containing the contents and structure of a disk volume or of an entire data storage device, such as a hard disk drive, tape drive, floppy disk, optical disc, or USB flash drive. A disk image is us ...

is also supported.

Software distribution

For the automatic software distribution some software, the opsi-client-agent, has to be installed on each client. Every time the client boots the opsi-client-agent connects to the opsi-server and asks if there is anything to install (default). If this shall be done a script driven installation program (opsi-winst) starts and installs the required software on the client. During the installation process the user login can be blocked for integrity reasons. To integrate a new software packet into the software deployment system, a script must be written to specify the installation process. This script provides all the information on how this software packet has to be installed silent or unattended or by using tools like

AutoIt AutoIt is a freeware programming language for Microsoft Windows. In its earliest release, it was primarily intended to create automation scripts (sometimes called macros) for Microsoft Windows programs but has since grown to include enhancements ...

Autohotkey AutoHotkey is a free and open-source custom scripting language for Microsoft Windows, initially aimed at providing easy keyboard shortcuts or hotkeys, fast macro-creation and software automation that allows users of most levels of computer skil ...

. With the opsi-winst steps like copy files or edit the registry can be done. The opsi-client-agent can also be triggered by other events or via push-installation from the opsi-server.

Patch-Management

The mechanism of the software deployment can also be used to deploy software patches and

hotfix A hotfix or quick-fix engineering update (QFE update) is a single, cumulative package that includes information (often in the form of one or more files) that is used to address a problem in a software product (i.e., a software bug). Typically, hot ...

es.

Inventory (hardware and software)

The hardware and software inventory also uses the opsi-client-agent. The hardware information is collected via calls to WMI while the software information is gathered from the

registry Registry may refer to: Computing * Container registry, an operating-system-level virtualization registry * Domain name registry, a database of top-level internet domain names * Local Internet registry * Metadata registry, information system for re ...

. The inventory data are sent back to the opsi-server by a web service. The inventory data may imported via a web service to a

CMDB A configuration management database (CMDB) is an ITIL term for a database used by an organization to store information about hardware and software assets (commonly referred to as configuration items). It is useful to break down configuration items ...

e.g. in

OTRS OTRS (originally Open-Source Ticket Request System) is a service management suite. The suite contains an agent portal, admin dashboard and customer portal. In the agent portal, teams process tickets and requests from customers (internal or exter ...

License management / Software Asset Management

The opsi License Management module supports the administration of different kinds of licenses like Retail,

OEM An original equipment manufacturer (OEM) is generally perceived as a company that produces non-aftermarket parts and equipment that may be marketed by another manufacturer. It is a common industry term recognized and used by many professional or ...

and Volume licenses. It counts the licenses that are used with the

software deployment Software deployment is all of the activities that make a software system available for use. The general deployment process consists of several interrelated activities with possible transitions between them. These activities can occur on the S ...

. Using the combination of the License Management and the software inventory, Software Asset Management reports on the number of free and installed licenses can be generated. The License Management module is part of a Co-funding Project and not released as open source yet.

Support of multiple locations

The software to be installed can be deposited bandwidth saving on several depot server. The configuration data can be stored and edited on one single server.

opsi-server

The opsi-server provides the following services: * The configuration-server stores the configuration data of the clients and provides the methods to manage these data via a web service or the command-line. The data can be stored in files, in

OpenLDAP OpenLDAP is a free, open-source implementation of the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) developed by the OpenLDAP Project. It is released under its own BSD-style license called the OpenLDAP Public License. LDAP is a platform-independe ...

or in a

MySQL MySQL () is an open-source relational database management system (RDBMS). Its name is a combination of "My", the name of co-founder Michael Widenius's daughter My, and "SQL", the acronym for Structured Query Language. A relational database o ...

Database. * The depot-server stores software packages that may be installed on the clients. To provide support for multiple locations, multiple depot-servers may be controlled by one configuration-server. * A

TFTP Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP) is a simple lockstep File Transfer Protocol which allows a client to get a file from or put a file onto a remote host. One of its primary uses is in the early stages of nodes booting from a local area network. ...

-Server provides the

s for the OS-Installations. * A

DHCP The Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) is a network management protocol used on Internet Protocol (IP) networks for automatically assigning IP addresses and other communication parameters to devices connected to the network using a cli ...

-Server may be integrated in the opsi-server.

Management interface

For managing opsi a graphical user interface is available as an application or as a browser

Applet In computing, an applet is any small application that performs one specific task that runs within the scope of a dedicated widget engine or a larger program, often as a plug-in. The term is frequently used to refer to a Java applet, a program w ...

. Management is also possible with a command line tool or via web service.

License

The opsi core features are

open-source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...

according to the

GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a series of widely used free software licenses that guarantee end users the Four Freedoms (Free software), four freedoms to run, study, share, and modify the software. The license was th ...

Version 3 and are free of charge. The core features are software distribution (or

), OS deployment and hard- and software-inventory. These free components can be supplemented with

closed source Proprietary software is software that is deemed within the free and open-source software to be non-free because its creator, publisher, or other rightsholder or rightsholder partner exercises a legal monopoly afforded by modern copyright and inte ...

add-ons that require the payment of a fee. They are called Co-funding Projects.

Co-funding projects

Even though opsi is open source, there are some components which are not for free at the moment. These components are developed in a co-funding project. This means, that these parts are only available for those customers who paid a contribution to the cost of development. As soon as the development of a co-funding project is refinanced, the component will be part of the free opsi-version and can be used free of charge. It will be open source (as long as not prevented caused by technical reasons). The first of these co-funding Projects was the opsi support for

. It was completed on 1 February 2008 and is free of charge since 1 March 2010. The source code was divided from the not yet paid parts and is open source since 30 November 2010. At the moment (January 2011) there are three co-funding projects: Treeview builds hierarchical groups of clients to manage;

as backend for all data; and the license management module. The main focus of co-funding projects is to create software once for a pool of purchasers who share the cost and make it open source as soon as it paid in full..

References and sources

External links

* * {{Citation , url = http://www.linux-magazine.com/Issues/2009/108/Opsi , contribution = Opsi , title = Linux Magazine , year = 2009 , issue = 108 Free software distributions Free network management software Configuration management Free software programmed in Python Software using the GNU AGPL license