ERA 6 / EEA 6 issues

[russell_t 2]

Ok, so lets see if anyone has any ideas about how I can do this better...

 

I use ESET RA 5 right now with 400 clients.

 

I use Mirror for updates, and I use IIS to serve those updates (virtual directory/password control etc) since the ERA HTTP server has always been slow and buggy.

 

I have about 40 different XML config files, that I export installers for from RA 5 to the single EXE, then distribute and script/deploy for install.  None of the systems are on domain or even attached to each other so push from RA has never been an option.

 

I need to maintain everything including the separate client installs, and the single file installs. This was easy with the manage packages and export to logon script method.

 

I need to migrate individual user by individual user, AKA I can't just rip all V5 out over a weekend and have V6 running the next day.

 

It will take at least a week or two to move through all the users and make sure they all upgrade, so I need to keep updates working for V5 during this period.

 

Also, I've been reading about lots of slowdowns and other complaints about V6... I just went through all the licensing mess, and if that was the only major change I'd be fine with it...

 

So I really can't see how I can achieve this upgrade until the following are complete:

 

1. Way to maintain and deploy agent and endpoint together as a small! EXE installer with unique XML config per group. This should seamlessly upgrade over an EEA v5 with a password as long as the new password is the same. I need to do this in one step and not have to find the computer name and move it to a group later.

 

2. Way to have the ERA server download mirror updates to a folder so I can preserve IIS hosting updates and keep EEA v4/v5 clients updating at least during the install. I'm NOT using the EFSW client to do this, and it would be nice to have options for signature update release based on the group (rapid/normal etc)

 

So far this is a huge step backwards and I'm not even getting into how poor the new UI design is.

 

I think I'm going to have to spin up another VM just to run ERA 6 in transition, but I'm not looking forward to dealing with these issues.  Any ideas on how to get around this, or should I just wait for ERA 7?

[jimwillsher 65]

Curious why you have 40 configs. With ERA6 (and with 5, i believe) you can apply policies based upon which group the computer is on. Move the computer to a different group, and different policies are applied. And they are hierarchical, so you put your common policies at the top and then the specific ones in lower groups. Having 40 configs seems administrative hell.

 

Can't comment on the mirror, all our clients (160+) all download updates via the web (and most are road warriors, either on a domain or in workgroups).

 

 

Jim

[Marcos 5,074]

First of all, we recommend testing v6 on a few computers until you become familiar with it. ERA v6 is not just a newer version of ERA, it was built from scratch and it's the first version of the 2nd generation of ERA.

 

As for mirroring, ERA doesn't support it any more and the recommended way of updating clients is via an Apache HTTP Proxy (bundled with the all-in-one ERA v6 installer) which will cache installation and update files and will also serve as a proxy server for communication of Endpoint on clients with ESET's servers (LiveGrid, activation servers, etc.).

 

Regarding creation of install files with a custom configuration, this is not possible with ERA v6. However, you can create dynamic groups based on various parameters and once a computer meets parameters for a particular group, the policy assigned to the dynamic group will be applied by the locally installed agent to Endpoint.

 

We plan to add an option for creating a mirror within this year. There are 2 more service releases of ERA v6 planned for this year, one to be released within a few weeks which will bring further enhancements based on users' feedback.

 

 

If you have any questions or issues, feel free to ask. We ESET's moderators and engineers check this forum on a regular basis and assist users with issues reported. Also we listen to our users, continually make improvements to ERA to accommodate our users' needs, create KB and videos to cover most common questions or issues users have.

[russell_t 2]

We have 40 configs because we have different email reporting settings and scheduled scan settings based on each regional group (CA, NV, UT, etc)  It's actually rather easy right now, we just copy the XML config, find and replace things in it and save it as the new config, then save as in manage packages, give it the new name and pick the xml config, then export the EXE and rename it.

 

The problem is that we need to email out the exe installer to these end users and just have them double click it, and have it go into the right group.  We have no idea what they have named their BYOB computers, so it's hard to just put them in the right group after the fact.  It is administrative hell but it was really easy in ERA 5 and before, which is why we chose ESET in the first place.

 

The parameters for dynamic groups aren't able to do this, so we would end up with everyone in one group with one config and have to manually move them after confirming computer names.

 

 

We don't like the HTTP Proxy for security reasons, we aren't allowed to run a proxy server open to the world.  So it's good to hear that the mirror is coming back.

 

The install with custom configuration is highly necessary as well so hopefully that will be added back.

 

I think we'll just have to wait it out.  I've spun up another VM to run ERA 6 just to keep playing with it on a few computers and make sure the client is stable and still performs well.