Imagine to deploy a very large number of thin clients. Is there a way to simplify the configuration of all devices on the field? The answer is yes and it's called "Zero Config".
If you provide correct information on the network and provide correct configuration for Profile Manager, life can be very easy.
The trick is to resolve thin clients' default factory providing a correct Devices Policy thereby sending a desired Configuration Profile for Device set up previously.
¶ Thin Clients Default Configuration
On the Praim's thin clients there are some default configuration related to network and ThinMan Server.
Network configuration default value is set to use DHCP so thin clients will attach correctly to the network and will be visible from ThinMan Server.
To use the Profile Manager thin clients must point to the correct ThinMan Server on the network. Default values configured on thin clients is DHCP Option 163 if provided, in case of unavailability try to use "PRAIMSERVER" hostname. In both cases if you configure your DHCP Server to provide Option 163 (see How to Configure DHCP Option 163) or configure your DNS server to solve "PRAIMSERVER" hostname thin clients will correctly point to ThinMan Server. In this case a thin client will send to ThinMan Server notifications and receive from it device profiles.
Once the network is configured you have to set correct Configuration Profile for Device and a Default on ThinMan.
¶ Create a Configuration Profile for Device and Default Device Policy
Using this specific feature of ThinMan console users can configure thin clients based on desired connections and parameters. The potential of this functionality is to deploy thousands of different configurations, saved on a template, automatically to all thin clients within the infrastructure (see Contextual Menu - Configurations - Save As Template).
The configuration saved in the template will be used to create a Configuration Profile for Device (see Configuration Profile for Devices). E.g. name this profile "DefaultDeviceProfile".
Users need to create a new Device Policy to apply the Configuration Profile for Device correctly (see Devices Policy). The policy (in this basic example) can be set as shown in the figures below.
Insert a name (E.g. "DefaultDevicePolicy") and set the status to "Enabled".
This default policy will not use "ThinMan Login" so the flag "Enable ThinMan Login" is not set. If you want to protect thin clients with the ThinMan Login, need to be set the specific parameter in the policy properties (see How to protect the Thin Client with ThinMan Login for more description).
Set the flag to use "Devices Profile" and select from the drop down list the previously created profile (E.g. "DefaultDeviceProfile"). Remind that this Configuration Profile for Device contain all the configuration of a thin client including connections to the servers.
By setting "Apply Profile changes to" to "All End Points" all changes made to the policy will be applied to all thin clients otherwise it will be applied just to factory default ones.
By setting "Overwrite changes on End Point" to "No" all local changes made to the thin client will be preserved (e.g. mouse sensivity, internationalization, local printers and so on). When the parameter is set to "Yes" the policy will apply its Configuration Profile for Device overwriting the changes locally made on the thin client.
Flag "Maintain Network Settings". Generally is good practice to preserve network settings as they can be modified in some thin clients to reflect particular network settings. The parameter "Maintain Video Settings" will preserve locally modified video settings. Whether unflagged the monitor will take the configuration of the Configuration Profile for Device associate to the policy in use.
Leave class and values selection empty.
Leave groups selection empty.
Leave devices selection empty.
In case of Default Policy (right click on the policy) there is no necessity to associate Classification, Devices Groups or Devices to the policy as it will be apply to all thin clients regardless classes, groups and devices.
In this situation all the thin clients will automatically receive the configuration using the device profile associated to the policy. The administrator can not configure the thin clients because they will receive the configuration out of the box the first time they were powered-on in the network.
This is a simple "Zero Config" for Praim's Thin Client.