The goal of Login AM is to deploy applications to one or more target machines in a consistent manner. In this context, deployment does not only mean the installation of the applications but also the management of configuration, security, publication and user preferences of the application. All configuration items needed to successfully deploy a single application onto a server or a group of servers are contained within a so called package.
For example, a Login AM file share may contain a package called “Microsoft Office” which contains instructions for installing Microsoft Office, instructions for the creation of start menu shortcuts, instructions for the creation of security groups and instructions for securing the Microsoft Office executable files. Within each package, the processing of plugins is executed.
A package can be categorized in 3 different parts:
- Plugin Settings
- Plugin Actions
- Package Settings
Plugin Settings
The plugin settings for a package contains the plugin specific settings that are relevant for this package. For example, is this plugin enabled for this package; yes / no. Or is this package a dynamic package or a chronological package.
Plugin Actions
Some plugins also allow the user to add custom action items to the execution of the plugin. For example, the installation of an MSI is an action item that is available on the deployment plugin.
To access the actions tab of a plugin for the package, simply select the plugin name on the tab bar and then select the Actions tab on the second tab bar.
Package Settings
Within Login AM, there is also the possibility to introduce new settings on a package. This can be done using the Add New button in the Package Settings view.
This will open a dialog where a type, display name,variable name and value can be assigned.
The display name is the name that is displayed in the User Interface. The variable name is the name that can be used as an environment variable from within custom scripts and other action items in this package. The display group is the group in which the setting will appear in the User Interface. The value is dependent on the type of variable, i.e. a Boolean can only have a true or false value, so when a Boolean type is selected only radio buttons for true and false are displayed.
The variable name for settings is also displayed in a tool tip while hovering over the display name of a setting.
After adding a setting to a package, there is also the possibility to make the setting global, using the global checkbox.
After making a setting global, the setting can be used from within action items in different packages and it can be overridden on a collection level (if the package is assigned to a layer that is assigned to the collection, or any of it's parents)
This means that we can override package specific settings for a collection, making it possible to keep our packages generic without having to use collection filter on our values.
Package Categories
Package categories enables the grouping of packages to a logical container in the Admin GUI. Being able to group packages together in a package category we can provide more structure when working with a large amount of packages.
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