Sending files to multiple Windows hosts
A few months ago at work, I needed to send a number of files to a little over 100 Windows workstations. I had administrator rights on all these workstations, and luckily for me, they all had the same administrator password.
I had access to a Red Hat AS4 server, so I wrote a shell script to read all the hostnames of the workstations from a text file, mount each C$ share via CIFS, copy the necessary files, unmount and repeat.
Over the past few weeks, I added a few other things which I were of use (ping check prior to send, file verification on remote workstation).
#!/bin/bash
#
# Script to send files to Windows workstations
# set -x
function runPingCheck ()
{
grep -vE '^$|^#' callcentres/$name.txt | while read i
do ping -c 1 `echo $i | awk '{print $1}'`.fqdn.com &> /dev/null
if [ $? -gt 0 ]; then
echo -e "$i ... PING FAIL"
fi
done
echo ""
echo "Check complete"
echo ""
echo -n "Continue with send(Y/N) [Y]? "
read contsend
case "$contsend" in
N|n) exit 1 ;;
Y|y|*) runSendFiles ;;
esac
}
function runSendFiles ()
{
echo "Send started `date`" | tee -a $name.log
grep -vE '^$|^#' callcentres/$name.txt | while read i
do ping -c 1 `echo $i | awk '{print $1}'`.fqdn.com &> /dev/null
if [ $? -gt 0 ]; then
echo "$i ... Host Offline" | tee -a $name.log
continue
fi
mount -t cifs //`echo $i | awk '{print $1}'`.fqdn.com/c$ /mnt/winmnt -o user=administrator,pass=PASSHERE
if [ $? -gt 0 ]; then
echo "$i ... Failed CIFS Mount" | tee -a $name.log
else
cp -R ./files/* /mnt/winmnt
if [ -e /mnt/winmnt/sent.tmp ]; then
rm /mnt/winmnt/sent.tmp
umount /mnt/winmnt
echo "$i ... Complete" | tee -a $name.log
else
umount /mnt/winmnt
echo "$i ... Failed File Verification" | tee -a $name.log
fi
fi
done
echo "Send completed `date`" | tee -a $name.log
}
ls ./callcentres | sed 's/.txt//g'
echo ""
echo -n "Type the name of the call centre you wish to upgrade: "
read name
echo ""
echo -n "Would you like to run a ping check before you send(Y/N) [Y]? "
read pingcheck
case "$pingcheck" in
N|n) runSendFiles ;;
Y|y|*) runPingCheck ;;
esac
exit 0
The basic directory structure looks like this:
/callcentres
– melbourne.txt
/files
/sendscript.sh
melbourne.txt just had a list of all the hostnames, each on its own line. (# can be used at the start of any line to skip a particular workstation).
host1 #host2 host3 ... host100
/files contains any file that you want to send to the remote Windows host. Take note that you need to provide the absolute path of the Windows location (e.g. /files/Program Files/)
Output of the script will be logged to STDOUT and to a log file in the root directory where sendscript.sh resides.
Once you have the file structure and sendscript.sh in order, simply run the script. You will be prompted for the name of the “call centre” you wish to send files to. In this example, you would enter melbourne. Then you will be asked if you’d like to run a ping check on each workstation prior to the file send.
Happy sending 
September 25th, 2009 at 2:18 am
I don’t know If I said it already but …Cool site, love the info. I do a lot of research online on a daily basis and for the most part, people lack substance but, I just wanted to make a quick comment to say I’m glad I found your blog. Thanks,
A definite great read..Tony Brown