Overview

This howto covers installing the fastpush script to your computer and what you'll need to do to get it working.

Requirements

• A copy of the latest edition of fastpush (see the downloads area)
• Some experience of Windows registry
• Basic CMD shell knowledge

Steps

1. Download and unzip

Download the latest version of fastpush and using a zip program (Powerarchiver, Winzip, etc.) extract it to a root drive on your PC. Just so you know, you'll want to extract it using folder names - otherwise the paths will be all messed up.

Please don't extract it to a path with a long folder name. Yeah I know that's a bit pants but there's a lot of variable manipulation within fastpush and it's very easy to get the quote marks messed up. Keep it simple and unzip the whole thing to c:\fastpush.

2. Setting the ini files up.

Before you can use Fastpush, you will need to configure some of the ini files. These are basically registry dumps performed with regdir and piped out to a file. All of the ini file are kept in the common subfolder, while reg lives in utils. Most of the donkey work has been done in machine.ini, but you will need to get your VNC password into that file.

For versions of RealVNC 4 or greater: Use:

REGDIR \registry\machine\software\realvnc\winvnc4

Select the PASSWORD variable and copy this into the vnc4.ini file. You can find this file in the common subfolder.

For all other versions of VNC, use:

regdir \registry\machine\software\orl\winvnc3\default

Select the PASSWORD variable and copy this into the machine.ini file. As with the previous file, you can find this in the common subfolder.

3. Fastpush variables (optional, but useful!)

In the later edition of fastpush there some variables you can set in the script to make your selections permanent. These are in the fpXX.cmd file in the fastpush directory. Please note that using one of the command line switches from fpXX.cmd will override this. This is merely a setting so you can avoid lots of retyping. A list of switches is available by just typing vnc and hitting [enter] in the fastpush folder.

NB: Do be careful when editing vnc.cmd with notepad - watch out that word wrap doesn't mess up the commands! Personally I like to use WinVI because it's free, does line numbering and lets you set the screen colours. I've heard that other users like TextPad. It's your call.

• set flav=real411
  [options can be listed using /flavour]
  Normally this is set to real411 which means the vanilla release of WinVNC will be installed. I've set my script to install the latest version.
  
  The variables available can be found by running the script with /flavour. Those of you who have had a look in the fastpush folder will have noticed that there's an install for each folder.
  
  
• set viewer=yes
  [option can be no or yes]
  This option is set to yes by default and means that fastpush will install vncviewer.exe to the target machine. Some admins don't like to give the viewer to their users. Using the /noview option will override the setting.
  
  
• set logit=no
  [option can be no or yes]
  Fastpush will log it's activity to a file - results.txt - in it's home directory. Normally, I leave this off, but for security purposes you may wish to have this on as default. It does not log who access which VNC server, it's only a log of who installed it.
  
  
• set fplocation=c:\fastpush
  [option is path to fpXX.cmd file]
  This variable can be set so you can run fastpush from the path. If you don't set the folder under fplocation - then you will need to CD into the folder where fastpush is installed and run it from there. Isn't that slightly longwinded? :-)
  
  You can use long path names, but don't use quotes or a trailing slash. The reason you shouldn't use quote around a long file name is that it messes up the IF statements. If the path is deemed invalid, vnc.cmd will tell you.
  
  
• set service=yes
  [option can be yes or no]
  This variable determins if the VNC service will be set to start automatically or manually. There are odd occasions where you wouldn't want the service running all the time. You can use a command line option if you don't want to mess with this setting.
  
  
• set psexec=no
  [option can be yes or no]
  Due to licencing I can't include PSEXEC in the fastpush download. Instead I've included support for both PSEXEC and XCMD. Both are excellent remote execution programs but XCMD is freeware. If you want to switcht to use PSEXEC then you should change this variable and download the latest version of PSEXEC
  
  
• set wait=no
  [option can be yes or no]
  In normal operation the fastpush script will just rattle on through until it's completed the installation (or coughed out an error). You can use /wait to make it halt after each key step. If you want that behaviour to be permanent, change this setting to yes.
  

4. Test Run

Right, you've copied the password setting in and tuned fastpush to you needs, best give it a spin. Pick a victim target NT/2000/XP machine and ping it. If you've got WINS (NT or Samba) then you'll most likely be using machine names - otherwise, you'll need to know the IP address.

Subject to having that you can now run the script and that's covered in this how to