CLIENT AND SERVER FOR INSTALLATION OF FILES EMBEDDED WITHIN A CLIENT PROFILE

• US 20130054535A1
• Filed: 08/29/2011
• Published: 02/28/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 08/29/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (HP Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (HP Inc.)
• Inventors: Liverance, Fletcher, Ledoux, Emmanuel Dimitri Christian, Clemenceau, Matthieu
• Granted Patent: US 9,075,678 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/654
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/61 Installation

Abstract

Example embodiments relate to distribution of a profile from a server to a client. In example embodiments, a server enables an administrator or other user to embed a file into a profile, where the profile is a structured document including the file and a storage location for the file on the client. The server may then transmit the profile to the client, which, upon receipt of the profile, may extract the embedded file from the structured document to a storage location on the client specified in the profile.

Claims

1. A client computing device for installing a profile received from a server, the computing device comprising:

a processor to;

receive a client profile from the server, wherein the client profile is a structured document including an embedded file and metadata relating to the embedded file,

determine a storage location for the embedded file on the client computing device using the metadata, and

extract the embedded file from the structured document to the determined storage location on the client computing device.

4. The client computing device of claim 1, wherein the structured document is an Extensible Markup Language (XML) document.

5. The client computing device of claim 4, wherein the embedded file is included within a set of XML tags as a base64 string.

6. The client computing device of claim 1, wherein the processor is configured to retrieve the client profile upon boot-up to configure the client computing device for communication with the server.

7. The client computing device of claim 1, wherein, when the embedded file replaces an existing the at the storage location, the processor is further configured to make a backup of the existing file prior to extracting the embedded file to the determined storage location.

8. The client computing device of claim 7, wherein, when the client profile is subsequently removed or a new profile is to be installed, the processor is further configured to write the backup of the existing the to the storage location to restore the existing file.

2. The client computing device of dam 1, wherein:

the metadata includes a file name and a file path, and

the processor is configured to determine the storage location of the embedded file as the file name and the file path.

3. The client computing device of claim 2, wherein:

the metadata further includes file permissions and file ownership information, and

the processor is configured to write the file permissions and the file ownership information to the storage location along with the embedded file.

9. A machine-readable storage medium encoded with instructions executable by a processor of a client computing device for installing a profile received from a server, the machine-readable storage medium comprising:

instructions for receiving a client profile from the server, wherein the client profile is a structured document including a text string of an embedded the and metadata identifying a storage location for the embedded file on the client computing device; and

instructions for extracting the embedded the from the structured document to the storage location on the client computing device.

10. The machine-readable storage medium of claim 9, wherein the text string of the embedded file is a base64 string embedded within a set of tags in the structured document.

11. The machine-readable storage medium of claim 10, wherein the structured document is an XML document.

12. The machine-readable storage medium of claim 9, further comprising:

instructions for generating a backup of an existing file at the storage location when the embedded file replaces the existing file; and

instructions for writing the backup of the existing file to the storage location to restore the existing file prior to installing a new profile.

13. A method for execution by a server computing device for creating a profile to be installed on a client, the method comprising:

presenting a user interface enabling a user to specify a file to be embedded within the profile and a storage location for the file on the client;

embedding the specified file within the profile as a text string, wherein the profile is a structured document;

embedding the storage location of the file on the client within the profile; and

transmitting the profile to the client for installation of the embedded file at the specified storage location.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the profile is an XML document and the file is embedded within the XML document as a base64 string.

15. The method of claim 13, wherein:

the user interface further enables the user to specify file permissions and file ownership information for the specified file, and

the method further comprises writing the file permissions and file ownership information within the profile.