How can I image a computer with RMM Central Agent on it?

Description

The fundamental step in managing the computers in your network is to deploy OS to all the systems. It becomes a mundane and time-consuming task to deploy OS manually to every computer. An effortless approach of doing this would be to image a computer with RMM Central agent on it and deploy the same to all the computers. This would deploy the OS and the agent to systems that you plan on managing.

Steps

1. Install RMM Central Agent in the computer which is to be used for imaging. Download pre-installation script in this computer and rename .txt file as .vbs file.

Execution of this script will block the Agent-Server communication on a temporary basis.

2. Open the command prompt as administrator and navigate to the folder where the above script is stored.
3. Execute the script as:cscript.exe dcagentpreimage.vbs and the machine is now ready to be imaged.

Example - E:\Downloads>cscript.exe dcagentPreImage.vbs

RMM Central Mac agent, residing on the computer with the deployed OS image, will contact the server only if renamed.
Here's why!
Every RMM Central Agent has a unique resource ID that is indicative of the machine name and other details. If more then one agent is identified with the same ID, the details of both the agents will be overwritten. This would end up listing the details of only one machine, despite two machines having the same agent ID. In order to avoid this situation, it is mandatory to rename the agent name in the computer with deployed OS image.

4. Follow these steps for restoration of agent-server communication in the imaged computer :
   • If you want to manage the imaged computer, download post-installation script and rename .txt file as .vbs file. Run the same as administrator on the imaged computer after being used for deployment.
   • This would restore the RMM Central Agent communication with the RMM Central Server.

Caution to be exercised :
While installing agents for customers, the installed agent will be customer-specific. Hence, when imaging and deploying OS with agents on it, ensure that you deploy the customer-specific agents to computers in that customer's network.
Say, you install agents for two customers, namely C1 and C2. The agents for customer 1 and 2 will be A1 and A2 respectively. While imaging and deploying OS for these two customers, ensure that you do not deploy the image of A1 to computers of C2 or A2 to computers of C1. Consequentially, A1, which originally belongs to C1, will be considered under C2 and A2, which originally belongs to C2, will be considered under C1.