How to Automate Satellite Deployment

Deploying the Satellite service to remote computers can be done with a few operations. Essentially the Satellite has to be installed and then told where the Central Monitoring Service is.

Get Files to Remote Server

The installer comes with the Central Monitoring Service, the Satellite and the Console. You need to get the installer onto the target computer. This can be done via your own copy/delivery operation. You have the option of fetching the Setup.exe from the Central Monitoring Service via an HTTPS call. At installation time, the installer copies itself to C:\Program Files\PA Server Monitor\Install\Setup.exe, which is available from:
https://{central server name}:{configured port}/$INSTALL_PATH$/Setup.exe (including the $ characters).

A registry file will also be needed (discussed below). You could copy that to the Install directory above, and reference the file via URL using $INSTALL_PATH$/{your registry file}

Install Satellite

Once the Setup.exe program is on the target server, start it with the following command line:

Documentation about these parameters and their meaning is available at http://unattended.sourceforge.net/InnoSetup_Switches_ExitCodes.html

Directing the Satellite

The Satellite will connect to the Central Monitoring Service indicated by a registry setting. The registry key is:

Note: On 64-bit operating systems, the key is actually under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Wow6432Node

The registry settings to set are:

ServiceHostName - The hostname or IP address of the Central Monitoring Service

ReportHTTPPort - The port that the Central Monitoring Service is listening on. This is configurable.

Agent_Name (optional) - The name of the Satellite that should show up in Consoles and reports. The local computer name will be used if this is left blank.

An example registry file is shown below.

Note: The ReportHTTPPort dword value above must be in hexidecimal

You can run RegEdit and point it at a registry file like the example above, or launch the Satellite with the /HOST command line to set the ReportHTTPPort and ServiceHostName registry values:

The /END option tells the Satellite process to stop after it processes the command line (it's not running as a service if you've launched it this way, so no reason to keep running).

Start Satellite

Once the above steps are complete, you can start the Satellite service using:

The Satellite will now connect to the Central Monitoring Service and wait to be accepted (see Configuring the Satellite Monitoring Service, the last few steps).

You can now add servers and monitors to be monitored by the Satellite just like you would for monitoring from the Central Monitoring Service -- just indicate that the Satellite will monitor the server when adding it (see Adding Computers).