Remote Install

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Author: Peter Barnett Date: Mar 08, 2019

EMCO Remote Installer is an easy-to-use network application designed for centralized software management and audit across a LAN. It offers a simple and effective approach to remote software distribution and can be used instead of SCCM and other complicated deployment tools. Select Install to install an extension on your remote host. You can also install all locally installed extensions on the SSH host by going to the Extensions view and selecting Install Local Extensions in SSH: Hostname using the cloud button at the right of the Local - Installed title bar.

  • Install the client. Choose the client that matches the version of Windows. The new Remote Desktop client (MSRDC) supports Windows 10, Windows 10 IoT Enterprise, and Windows 7 client devices.
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  • Remotely is free and open-source, and there are multiple ways to start using it. Download the portable client to try out instant screen sharing Create an account on the public server that we host for you Install a server package to host a server yourself.

Timely updating the software installed in the company and installing the required patches is one of the important tasks, the implementation of which allows you to avoid various software malfunctions, as well as to ensure an adequate level of security. How can you centrally and remotely manage software updates and patches in a company? To do this, there are various solutions called patch management tool. If you have ever had to install Windows updates, as in patching servers, you know you have to log into servers and allow updates to install, suppressing reboots along the way. I will focus on windows update in powershell today (Invoke-WUInstall), used to install Windows updates remotely.

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1. Installing PSWindowsUpdate PowerShell Module


Since PSWindowsUpdate is not installed on Windows by default, we have to first install the module.

PS C:WINDOWSsystem32> Install-Module PSWindowsUpdate -MaximumVersion 1.5.2.6

If we run Get-Command we can see all of the commands in the PSWindowsUpdate module:

PS C:WINDOWSsystem32> Get-Command -Module PSWindowsUpdate

CommandType Name Version Source

    ----------- ---- ------- ------
  • Alias Get-WindowsUpdate 1.5.2.6 pswindowsupdate
  • Alias Hide-WindowsUpdate 1.5.2.6 pswindowsupdate
  • Alias Install-WindowsUpdate 1.5.2.6 pswindowsupdate
  • Alias Uninstall-WindowsUpdate 1.5.2.6 pswindowsupdate
  • Function Add-WUOfflineSync 1.5.2.6 pswindowsupdate
  • Function Add-WUServiceManager 1.5.2.6 pswindowsupdate
  • Function Get-WUHistory 1.5.2.6 pswindowsupdate
  • Function Get-WUInstall 1.5.2.6 pswindowsupdate
  • Function Get-WUInstallerStatus 1.5.2.6 pswindowsupdate
  • Function Get-WUList 1.5.2.6 pswindowsupdate
  • Function Get-WURebootStatus 1.5.2.6 pswindowsupdate
  • Function Get-WUServiceManager 1.5.2.6 pswindowsupdate
  • Function Get-WUUninstall 1.5.2.6 pswindowsupdate
  • Function Hide-WUUpdate 1.5.2.6 pswindowsupdate
  • Function Invoke-WUInstall 1.5.2.6 pswindowsupdate
  • Function Remove-WUOfflineSync 1.5.2.6 pswindowsupdate
  • Function Remove-WUServiceManager 1.5.2.6 pswindowsupdate

2. How Invoke-WUInstall Works


One different aspect of using Invoke-WUInstall is that it does not use traditional remoting methods to perform Windows update in PowerShell. When you look at the source code, it actually creates and immediately runs a scheduled task on the remote machine under the SYSTEM account.

  • Write-Verbose 'Create schedule service object'
  • $Scheduler = New-Object -ComObject Schedule.Service
  • $Task = $Scheduler.NewTask(0)
  • $RegistrationInfo = $Task.RegistrationInfo
  • $RegistrationInfo.Description = $TaskName
  • $RegistrationInfo.Author = $User.Name
  • $Settings = $Task.Settings
  • $Settings.Enabled = $True
  • $Settings.StartWhenAvailable = $True
  • $Settings.Hidden = $False
  • $Action = $Task.Actions.Create(0)
  • $Action.Path = 'powershell'
  • $Action.Arguments = '-Command $Script'
  • $Task.Principal.RunLevel = 1

typical use of Invoke-WUInstall would be:

Invoke-WUInstall -ComputerName Test-1 -Script {ipmo PSWindowsUpdate; Get-WUInstall -AcceptAll | Out-File C:PSWindowsUpdate.log }-Confirm:$false –Verbose

In this command we see Get-WUInstall, which is the command PSWindowsUpdate uses to install updates, usually from your Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) server. Get-WUInstall simply uses a COM object for Windows updates to perform the tasks needed. Notice also the use of the -AcceptAll parameter, which means it will automatically accept any updates to install.

One nice feature of Invoke-WUInstall is that it actually installs the PSWindowsUpdate module on the remote machine (if it isn't there already). This is great when you are using the module on a new machine, or when you decide to use it for the first time.

  • C: > $cim = New-CimSession -ComputerName Test-1
  • C: > $cim
  • Id : 2
  • Name : CimSession2
  • InstanceId : afa8c63d-fb1f-46f9-8082-c66238750a92
  • ComputerName : Test-1
  • Protocol : WSMAN
  • C:ScriptsPowerShell> (Get-ScheduledTask -TaskPath ' -CimSession $cim -TaskName PSWindowsUpdate).actions
  • Id :
  • Arguments : -Command ipmo PSWindowsUpdate; Get-WUInstall -AcceptAll -AutoReboot | Out-File C:PSWindowsUpdate.log
  • Execute : powershell
  • WorkingDirectory :
  • PSComputerName : Test-1

As you can see, the scheduled task is going to run ipmo PSWindowsUpdate; Get-WUInstall -AcceptAll -AutoReboot | Out-File C:PSWindowsUpdate.log. Using Out-File will ensure the logs of downloading and installing updates are visible so we can check against them later..


3. Install Updates on Multiple Machines


The true power of Invoke-WUInstall is when you have to install updates on many machines at once. This is very easy to do, all you need is to add machines to the ‑ComputerName parameter, which then processes them in a loop (not in parallel unfortunately).

  • C: > Invoke-WUInstall -ComputerName Test-1,Test-2,Test-3,Test-4 -Script {ipmo PSWindowsUpdate; Get-WUInstall -AcceptAll | Out-File C:
  • PSWindowsUpdate.log } -Confirm:$false -Verbose
  • VERBOSE: Populating RepositorySourceLocation property for module PSWindowsUpdate.
  • VERBOSE: Loading module from path 'C:Program FilesWindowsPowerShellModulesPSWindowsUpdate1.5.2.6PSWindowsUpdate.psm1'.
  • VERBOSE: Create schedule service object
  • VERBOSE: Performing the operation 'Invoke WUInstall' on target 'Test-1'.

4. Windows Update in Powershell: Finding Errors


One great reason to output to a log on the remote machine is to confirm that no errors installing updates on these remote machines occurred. With some simple PowerShell, we can query these log files and search for failures.

Here is what a typical log looks like after using Get-WUInstall -AcceptAll | Out-File C: PSWindowsUpdate.log:

It includes the status of the update, its KB number, size, and title—all great information to have handy when installing updates.

Using Invoke-Command, Get-Item, and Select-String, we can use a quick technique to easily work through any computers used with Invoke-WUInstall and check for updates that failed to install:

  • C:> Invoke-Command -ComputerName Test-1,Test-2,Test-3 -ScriptBlock {
  • >> Get-Item C:PSWindowsUpdate.log | Select-String -Pattern 'failed' -SimpleMatch |
  • >> Select-Object -Property line } | Select-Object -Property Line,PSComputerName
  • Line PSComputerName
  • ---- --------------
  • 4 Failed KB4103712 30 MB 2018-05 Security Only Quality Update for Windo... Test-1

Consider using Action1 to install Windows updates remotely if:


  • - You need to perform an action on multiple computers simultaneously.
  • - You have remote employees with computers not connected to your corporate network.

Action1 is a cloud-based platform for patch management, software deployment, remote desktop, software/hardware inventory, endpoint management and endpoint configuration reporting.

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Relevant How To Articles and Action1 Features:

Install R Packages from remote or local repositories, including GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, and Bioconductor

Download and install R packages stored in GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, Bioconductor, or plain subversion or git repositories. This package is a lightweight replacement of the install_* functions in devtools. Indeed most of the code was copied over from devtools.

Features

  • Installers:
    • Install packages with their dependencies.
    • Install from GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket.
    • Install from git and subversion repositories.
    • Install from local files or URLs.
    • Install the dependencies of a local package tree.
    • Install specific package versions from CRAN.
  • Supports Bioconductor packages.
  • Supports the Remotes field in DESCRIPTION. See more in the dependencies vignette.
  • Supports the Additional_repositories field in DESCRIPTION.
  • Can install itself from GitHub (see below).
  • Does not depend on other R packages.
  • Does not contain compiled code, so no compiler is needed.
  • Does not need any external software (for most of the functionality at least).

Installation

Install the released version of remotes from CRAN:

Usage

Note that most of the examples here use GitHub. See below for other supported repository types.

To install the latest version of a package in the default branch from GitHub, you can use the user/repo form. Note that user can also be an organization:

If the R package is inside a subdirectory of the root directory, then give this subdirectory as well:

To install a certain branch or commit or tag, append it to the repo name, after an @:

To install the latest release, append @*release to the repo name:

To install a pull request, append # and the id (an integer number) of the pull request to the repo name:

Dependencies

Dependencies are automatically installed from CRAN. By default, outdated dependencies are automatically upgraded. In interactive sessions you can select a subset of the dependencies to upgrade.

Dependencies on GitHub

It is also possible to install dependencies from GitHub or other supported repositories. For this you need to add a Remotes field to the DESCRIPTION file. Its format is:

where repo_spec is any repository specification the corresponding install_() function can handle. If remote:: is missing, github:: is assumed. Other possible values: gitlab::,bitbucket::, git::, local::, svn::, url::, version::, cran::, bioc::.

See more about the Remotes field in this vignette.

Additional repositories

remotes supports the Additional_repositories field in DESCRIPTION. This is a way to specify dependencies from non-CRAN package repositories. See the Writing R extensions manual for details.

Bioconductor packages

Bioconductor packages are automatically detected and their dependencies are installed from Bioconductor.

Currently supported remote types

  • GitHub repositories via install_github.
  • Bitbucket repositories via install_bitbucket.
  • Generic git repositories via install_git. They need either a system git installation, or the git2r R package.
  • Local directories or package archive files via install_local.
  • Remote package archive files via install_url.
  • Packages in subversion repositories via install_svn. They need a system subversion installation.
  • Specific package versions from CRAN or other CRAN-like repositories via install_version. This includes outdated and archived packages as well.
  • All dependencies of a package in a local directory via install_deps.

Download methods

  • For R older than 3.2, the curl package is required as remotes falls back to curl::curl_download in that case
  • For R newer than 3.3, default download.file() method is used. (method = 'auto')
  • For in between versions,
    • method = 'wininet' is used on windows OS
    • method = 'libcurl' is used on other OS, if available.

See help('download.file') for informations on these methods and for setting proxies if needed.

Standalone mode

remotes will use the curl, git2r and pkgbuild packages if they are installed to provide faster implementations for some aspects of the install process. However if you are using remotes to install or update these packages (or their reverse dependencies) using them during installation may fail (particularly on Windows).

If you set the environment variable R_REMOTES_STANDALONE='true' (e.g. in R Sys.setenv(R_REMOTES_STANDALONE='true')) you can force remotes to operate in standalone mode and use only its internal R implementations. This will allow successful installation of these packages.

Options

remotes uses the following standard R options, see ?options for their details:

Remote Install Android Spy

  • download.file.method for the default download method. See ?download.file.

  • pkgType for the package type (source or binary, see manual) to install, download or look up dependencies for.

  • repos for the locations of the user’s standard CRAN(-like) repositories.

Remote

Remote Installing

It also uses some remotes specific options:

Remote Install Spy App

  • BioC_git for the URL of the default Bioconductor git mirror.

  • BioC_mirror for the URL of the Bioconductor mirror.

  • unzip for the path of the external unzip program.

Environment variables

  • The BITBUCKET_USER and BITBUCKET_PASSWORD environment variables are used for the default Bitbucket user name and password, in install_bitbucket()

  • The GITHUB_PAT environment variable is used as the default GitHub personal access token for all GitHub API queries.

  • The R_BIOC_MIRROR environment variable can be used to specify an alternative Bioconductor mirror. (The BioC_mirror option takes precedence over this.)

  • The R_BIOC_VERSION environment variable can be used to force a Bioconductor version.

  • The R_REMOTES_UPGRADE environment variable can be used to set a default preferred value for the upgrade = argument accepted by the various install_*() functions. For example, you can set R_REMOTES_UPGRADE='always' to upgrade dependent packages without asking the user.

  • Setting R_REMOTES_STANDALONE='true' forces remotes to work in standalone mode and avoid loading its optional dependencies (curl, git2 and pkgbuild currently. See “Standalone mode” above.

  • Setting R_REMOTES_NO_ERRORS_FROM_WARNINGS='false' will cause warning messages during calls to install.packages() to become errors. Often warning messages are caused by dependencies failing to install.