Samba Share Folder Structure and Description (4320005)

The K2000 has seven Samba shares; three are hidden (not browsable)  but all can still be mounted as a network drive if needed to assist with investigating deployment issues. The samba shares are: \drivers, \drivers_postinstall, \clientdrop, \restore, \usmt, \peinst and \petemp. Note that \peinst  is a read only share. Caution should be exercised on editing any items in the folders as  the folder structure and files within may be needed for deployments to function.

The \drivers share contains two folders: kbe_windows_x64 and kbe_windows_x86 which contain the drivers injected into a KBE when it is built. Typically these folders contain the contents of a KBE Driver Pack matching the WINPE version for the OS the KBE will be used to install.  If the provided driver pack does not contain a driver needed for a particular machine model, drivers can be manually copied to these folders as needed. Take care to match the Architecture of the driver packs and any manually added drivers to the correct folder in the driver share. Only one WINPE version should exist in these folders at a time to avoid conflicting drivers being injected into a newly built KBE. The \drivers share also contains folders for each OS version and architecture. Once a base image has been copied to a target machine via Image deployment or Scripted Install, the copy drivers vbs script is executed as a mid-level task. It will query the target machine for its OS version and OS architecture. It will then look for any drivers in this path (Example: \\k2\drivers\windows_7_x64 ) and recursively inject all drivers contained in the path into the Image or Scripted Install. As of K2000 version 3.4, use of these folders, with the exception of kbe_windoes_x64 and kbe_windows_x86 needed for building new KBEs, is deprecated as a driver repository and should not be used.   

The \drivers_postinstall folder contains the drivers needed for specific models of computers. Driver packages are automatically added to this share when driver feed packages are installed. They can also be added using the Driver Feed Builder tool or manually if the need arises. The folder structure of this share is important and takes the form of Manufacturer\OS type and architecture\machine model.  Once a base image has been copied to a target machine via Image deployment or Scripted Install, the copy drivers vbs script is executed as a mid-level task. It will query the target machine for its manufacturer, OS version, OS architecture, and the machine model and look for that path in the share (example : \\K2\drivers_postinstall\dell\windows_7_x64\9020 ) . If the path exists, it will recursively inject all drivers contained in the path into the Image or Scripted Install. The path used by the copy driver task for any particular model of computer can be found by running the utility driver_feed_discovery_tool.vbs located in the \drivers_postinstall\feed_tools folder.

The \clientdrop share is used to upload files larger than 1.8 GB for use in task creation. To select a file from the clientdrop Samba share on the appliance, under Select file from clientdrop share, click Select clientdrop file, and choose the file.

The \restore share is used when moving items through the Import or Export process. This folder is usually empty except when configured for automated export of items to be moved to a shared drive and is the location of importing Managed Installs from the K1000 or tasks from another K2000 appliance.

The \usmt share contains uploaded Microsoft USMT software and captured user states for later deployment.

The \petemp share is a temporary space for Image or Scripted Install deployment. It also contains deployment logs and image capture logs.

The \peinst  share again is read only and  is populated with pre- and post-installation tasks as well as deployment boot files and media used for network installation via Scripted Install or Image deployment. The folder is mapped during certain actions through the Media Manager, image deployments, or software tools.

All seven samba shares use the same storage pool on the K2000  (whether using off-board storage or not) so its best practice to check the available freespace  on the disk utilization chart before adding files to any of the samba shares. The K2000 needs some freespace for normal operation, its best practice to maintain at least 20GB of freespace at all times.