CCBoot

User Manual

Youngzsoft 2017

Client Manager
1. Client Properties
You can "Right Click" and choose “Edit Client” or “Double Click” the client in the client list on
the CCBoot interface to open "Client Details" dialog box.

Figure 1

Enabled​: Client PC is enabled for diskless booting.

Computer Name​: Client computer name.

Group​: Define the user group that the client belongs to.

IP Address​: IP address that gets from CCBoot Server.

MAC Address​: MAC address of the client information.

Gateway​: Gateway of the router for internet access and connection

DNS1​: 1st DNS IP for internet connection

DNS2​: 2nd DNS IP for internet connection

Image​: Assign Images to the clients.

Note:​ you can assign only two boot image, for more please use multiboot pxe option and
customize the boot file.

Note:​ Please do not use older version (3.0 version and older) image in new version CCBoot
or user image created in new verison in older version CCBoot as it lead to client not booting
or other boot issues.

1st Server​: The IP address of the boot server. If more than one server, you can input more
IP address of the server on the 2nd Server field.

2nd Server​: The IP address of the 2nd boot server if you have a load balance server
running.

PXE​: Specified PXE file name. The default value can support most of the network card.
Note: It would be better to use "gpxe.pxe", but if you cannot diskless boot the client via
using "gpxe.pxe", you can try to change the PXE value to "gpxe0.pxe". If this doesn't work,
please modify the value to "gpxex.pxe". If you can successfully use“gpxe.pxe" in CCBoot
20120817, but failed to use it in the new build,please try ”gpxe1.pxe". From CCBoot v3.0
Build 20130710,"gpxe1.pxe" means "gpxe.pxe" of 20120817. If Realtek 8111E NIC has
blue screen problem, you can try to change the PXE value to"ipxe.pxe

Hardware Profile​: To set the client hardware configuration profile.

Change Display​: If your Client has multiple monitors the resolutions can setup individual
client's resolution. 1st is "Resolution", 2nd is "Colour Bit" and 3rd is "Refresh Rate". All fields
need to be filled in order for it to be applied properly. You can set them using the drop down
or enter custom resolution and other values manually as well. If any field is empty the
settings will not be applied and it will default to blank.

Enable Cache​: Setting the memory to use as a client cache, is depending on the client's
memory size. Example: client RAM is 2GB; you can set the 256M to use as a cache.

Local Writeback :​ Check this to enable local writeback using the client own HDD/SSD.
(Note: Your local HDD/SSD need to be formatted already for this option to work.)

Note:​ Write to local HDD is used when you have harddisk or SSD on your client but want to
boot from CCBoot and not use local HDD for OS or games. This also helps reduce load on
writeback disk on the server.

It is ok if you see local writeback file have size 0 in explorer. To see right size of file just
open properties.

Important: Before you enable local write back, make sure that you have connected
HDD/SSD in your client PC and has only one partition and is formatted in 32K
Allocation unit. Else you may experience client restart or freezing.

Enable Personal​: Allow you to assign personal disk to the client. Please refer ​Use of
Personal Disk​ for further information.

Note​: After you set the personal size, you cannot change it any more. You will have to
uncheck the"Enable Personal Disk", then delete the personal disk file.After that you can
reset personal disk of you require size.

1. Add Client
There are four methods to add clients.

1. Add Client Manually

1) Click the "Add Client" button on the toolbar.

2) Fill in the Computer Name, IP Address, MAC Address, gateway and DNS (if blank will
take DNS from CCBoot DHCP settings and choose the image (Figure 1-1).

3) If "Boot Server Address" is "0.0.0.0" then change it to server's IP address. Eg.

192.168.1.198.

4) If you want to set client cache then tick the "Enable Cache" checkbox and then enter
desired cache value (Eg. 512), please refer to "​Client Cache​".

Figure 1-1

5) Click "OK" to add the PC to CCBoot.

2. Add Client Automatically

Before automatically added, you need to set a default client and all automatically added
client will get the default settings from that default client. You can set any already added
client as the default client.

1) Click the "Options" button on the toolbar. Click the ">>" button besides the "Default User
Template" (Figure 1-2).

Figure 1-2

2) In the "CCBoot User List", select one proper user, then click "OK". Now this user's
settings will be the automatically added users' default settings (Figure 1-3).
 Figure 1-3

2.1. Add Client At Client PC

1) Click "Options" on the toolbar.

2) Select "Auto Add Client" and "Rename in Booting" (if you want to set custom name for
client during boot) check box (Figure 1-4).
 Figure 1-4

3) Now diskless boot the client, it will take IP from CCBoot server and then will be listed in
the "Client Manager". If you have checked "Rename in Booting" then you will see the
screen below after client takes IP from server. You can change the Computer Name and IP
Address, press "Enter" key.

The client PC will reboot once again then boot normally to desktop.

Once client is added it will take same settings as the Default User Template (Figure 1-5).
 Figure 1-5

2.2. Automatically Scan to Add Client

1) Select "Client Manager" node in the tree, and right click on the blank area and then
choose "Auto Scan" (Figure 1-6).
 Figure 1-6

2) It will open the"Auto Scan" window, click "Start" to start the scan (Figure 1-7).

Figure 1-7

3) it will start to scan all online computers in your LAN and add them to the "Client Manager"
list automatically. By default the new clients will be added to "Default Group" and will have
the same settings as the Default User Template (Figure 1-8).
 Figure 1-8

2.3. Add Client by Importing from File.

1) Click "Tools" menu and select "Import Users" (Figure 1-9).
 Figure 1-9

2) You can select a csv file to import the clients.

The csv file format is

One client information per line.

The first column is ComputerName.

The second column is IP Address.

The third column is MAC Address. The MAC address should be 12 letters (case
insensitive).

The column is splitted by comma (,).

For example:

PC001,192.168.1.101,001C5A3CA5F1

PC002,192.168.1.102,001C5A3CA5F2

PC003,192.168.1.103,001C5A3CA5F3

3) After you import the csv file, all clients will be added to CCBoot and they have the same
settings as the Default User Template.

3. How to delete client?

If you want to delete client, you need to click "Client Manager" node on the tree, right click
the client you want to delete and then choose "Delete Client" (Figure 1-10).
It will ask you to confirm delete, choose "Yes'.
 Figure 1-10

1. Edit Client and Multiple Clients' Properties

1. Edit Single Client Properties
1) Click "Client Manager" node in the tree, select a client whose settings you want to change, and double
click it.

2) And you will see the “Client Details” dialog box, you can change the options as you like (Figure 1).
 Figure 1

2. Edit Multiple Clients Properties

1) Click "Client Manager" node in the tree, Select multiple clients in the client list, right click and select
"Edit Client" (Figure 2).
 Figure 2

2) You will see many check boxes before the options unlike in single user “Client Details”. The check
boxes means you can change the selected options for all selected clients. Some options do not have
check boxes this mean you cannot change that option for all clients at once.

For example,

If you tick the checkbox before the "Status", and then select "Enable" checkbox, it will change all selected
clients status to "Enable", but the other options will not be changed.

Similarly, if you tick the checkbox before the "Enable Cache", and change its value then all the selected
clients, "Enable Cache" value will be changes leaving other settings unchanged since the check boxes
are not ticked. (Figure 3).
 Figure 3

3) Click "OK" button to save the changes to the settings.

1. Client Cache
Client cache is used for caching client read/write data. When the client write data, so it will
be stored into the client cache (RAM) first and only when the client cache is full, it will be
flushed to the server writeback disk. So the client cache can make better performance for
the diskless client and also reduce the load on server writeback disk.

Comparing with server, the client cache is only RAM cache.

1) On CCBoot server, select the client PC, right click and choose "Edit Client" to open the
window as below (Figure 1‑1).
 Figure 1‑1

2) Tick the checkbox at the front of "Enable Cache". You can either select using the drop
down menu or enter value manually. Please refer to the following table.

Client Physical RAM Client Cache

1G 256M

2G 384M

4G 512 -1024 M or Auto

8G 1024 - 2048 M or Auto

Note: In new version of CCBoot, you can set Client local cache to auto, this will
automatically set the local cache based on the amount of RAM available. This also give you
a slight boost in boot speed as well as client performance.

3) If you tick the "Write to local HDD" the the client will not use the RAM for cache but will
use the local hard disk for writeback.

Note: You need to have a local harddisk already formatted. If not local writeback will not
work.

4) Click "OK" to save the settings.

Notes:

Sometimes, the client cache will cause blue screen when boot Windows. You can update
the image by three methods.

a) Reduce the size of client cache size, if it is still failed, try method b.

b) Reinstall CCBoot Client with selected "Start Cache After Login Window".

c) Disable the client cache.

Advanced Client Cache

If the client OS is 32bit, then the unmanaged RAM can be used as client write cache. For
details, please refer to "​Unmanaged RAM as Client Write Cache​".

Note: if you are using third party DHCP like pfsense then please follow the wiki to setup
pfsense properly or the client cache will not function as desired.
Block adult website in CCBoot
Now you can block adult websites in CCBoot clients.

Follow the steps below:

1. Open "CCBoot Options" on the Server.

2. Check "Enable Adult filter" and then click "OK" button.

3. Now the adult websites will be blocked.

Note:​ Enabling Adult Filter changes the DNS in the client.

1. Client Group Management
CCBoot client group is used to make it easy to distinguish when you have many different specification
clients. There are no group properties yet. For example, you have AM1 and Normal PCs on your iCafe,
and you want to check the clients easily.

You can define additional group - Ex. AM1.

After you have created "Client Group" you can assign the clients to it. By default, all clients are in the
"Default" group.

1. On the CCBoot main interface, right click the "Client Manager" and choose "Create Group" to create a
new client group.

Figure 1-1

2. Type in the name of the group, here ‘AM1’ popup dialog box, click "Save" button.
 Figure 1-2

3. Right click the client you want to change the group of and choose “Edit Client”. In the “Client Details”
dialog box, click the drop down menu of "Group" and choose “AM1”.
 Figure 1-3
4. Once the group is selected, click "OK: to save the settings. Note. A client can only be in on group at
any time.
 Figure 1-4

5. Now, if you click of the “AM1” group, you will see the client you just assigned to this group.
 Figure 1-5

6. If you want to remove the clients from one group, then open “Client Details” dialog box of the client and
the change the group to “Default”, it will be removed from other group now. Click “OK” to save the
settings.
 Figure 1-6

1. Unmanaged RAM as Client Write Cache

In 32bit OS system, you can only use 3.25G RAMS even your PC have 4G RAM. It's the 32bit
system's limitation. The system can only recognize the 3.25G RAM and we call the rest memory
as "Unmanaged Memory".
There is about 750M memory is waste. In CCBoot system, we can use the unmanaged memory
for client write cache.
 Figure 1-1
Requirements:
The client PC should have 4G or more RAM.
Not all motherboards support this function. If there is option named "memory mapping hole" in
BIOS, please enable it.
This function is only valid in 32bit system. Cannot use it in 64bit system.
If you are using Windows 7 32bit OS, you need to run "cmd -> bcdedit /set PAE ForceEnable"
with administrator permission to enable large memory access.

For example, PC101 has 4G RAM.

Enable super client in PC101 properties in CCBoot server.
Diskless boot PC101, click "Start" menu -> "Run" -> input "regedit", press "Enter" key.
Locate to \HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControSet\Services\CCache\Parameters
On the right list, double click "4G".

Figure 1-2
In popup "Edit DWORD (32-bit) Value" Dialog box, input "1" in "Value data", click "OK".

Figure 1-3
In the right list, double click "4GReservedLow"，in the popup "Edit DWORD(32-bit) Value"
dialog box, input "100" in the "Value data", click "OK".
 Figure 1-4
Close registry editor.
Shutdown the client PC and disable super client in the PC101 properties.
1. View the Client Local Cache Usage

You can set client cache for each client on the CCBoot Server. (Please refer to the help
document "​Client Cache​").

Let’s say you want to see how much cache is being used on client then to do that open the
CCBoot Client application on the client. In the CCBoot Client UI read the data in the boxed
area.
 Figure 1
Some terms you may see in the Cache settings

1) "Size ": Indicates the client local cache size.

2) "Used": Represents amount of caching that is already done on client ram cache

3) "Read ": Represents amount of reads cached on client ram cache.

4) "Write": Represents amount of writes cached on client ram cache.

Client PCs CPU and RAM Usage

In new version of CCBoot 20180319 and higher, we have added 2 new columns "CPU
Usage" and "RAM Usage" in the Client Manager.

These columns will show the client pc's CPU and RAM usage respectively (Figure 1).
 Figure 1

Fix remote shutdown and reboot issue

Issue:

When sending shutdown or reboot command from CCBoot server, the client doesnot
shutdown or reboot.

Cause:

The cause of this issue can be CCBoot client application is not allowed to run in startup or
the client application has issue running.
Solution:

To resolve this:

1. Boot one of your client in super client mode.

2. Download CCBoot installer file and install CCBoot client again (It may ask to uninstall
previous installation, chose yes).

3. After re installation is done, turn off the client and save the image

4. Boot your client, it should now shutdown or reboot when command is sent from the
server.