Install Wingate silent

[patrik33]

Hi all!

I do have the challenge that I have to install WinGate7.3.0.3506 silently for our customers.
I have to install WinGate and then enable SOCKS proxy service with a specific port.

Can you may share me your knowledge about how to install WinGate silent with parameters?

Thanks in advance,
Patrik

[adrien]

Hi Patrik

you can run WinGate installer silently with a -s command switch.

As for having some other form of config, or partial extra config, you can ship a reg file, which contains the details of the config you need (e.g. the SOCKS service), and apply that.

Is there any particular reason it needs to be 7.3.0.3506? That wasn't even the last release of version 7.x (current is 8.2.5)

Regards

Adrien de Croy

[patrik33]

Hi Adrien de Croy!

Thanks for your fast reply!
I do use this version because it was working every time for customer systems and I do now want to run into issue if I install a different version ;-)

May you be so kind and provide me some details about this reg file you mentioned?
Do you have such example reg files?
How should iot look like? What are the parameter I have to specify there?
How does the install commend look then? Something like: WinGate<version>.exe -s "Path\to\reg.txt" ?

Is there a documentation site somewhere where I may get some further information?

Best regards,
Patrik

[adrien]

HI

to get the reg file, I would recommend installing WinGate on a computer, setting the configuration you want, then exporting the wingate registry key to a file using regedit. There can be issues between 64 bit and 32 bit windows, so be careful of that - WinGate is a 32 bit app, so on 64 bit windows, its registry is redirected out from under it. So you would probably need to export from a 64 bit OS, and the key is HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\WOW6432Node\Qbik Software\WinGate

If you only want to add the SOCKS service, you can find the subkey (under wingate key \Services) for that service.

Then the app you use to launch the silent install would also need to run the reg file. The WinGate installer won't do that.

Adrien

[patrik33]

Hi Adrien!

I will try out your solution today and will let yu know if it works for me or if there any issues.

Just for my confirmation (please correct me if i misuderstood something):
1) Install WinGate with configuration on a windows 64 bit machine
2) Export wingate key
3) Install WinGate on target machine silent with -s option
4) Import registry key there

Then WInGate will have the same settings as on my other machine correct?
How's about the licensing? Is there an option to implement a license silenty? Will importing the registry key also import the license from other machine?

Thanks so far,
Patrik

[adrien]

Hi

yes, that will result in the configuration being migrated.

As for licensing, there's no silent way. It needs to be activated for the computer it is installed on. And you need a license for each installation anyway. Once the software is installed, and youv'e restarted when you log in with WinGate Management, it will take you through the activation stage.

Are you looking to roll out a lot of installs silently? What are your plans for licensing (e.g. free, trial or purchased). Feel free to take this up in our support desk (support@wingate.com) if you don't want to discuss here.

Regards

Adrien

[patrik33]

Hi Adrien!

This will help me a lot.

We have a platform called BMC CLM and our customer can provision servers with it and do all the configuration stuff full automated.
So I build a package that creates a Socks proxy server. WinGate is a stable and well working software so we are only using WinGate for our proxies.
So yeah, if my package is finished, I will roll out a lot of servers with WinGate (actually all our proxy servers ;-) )

I am using the free license on the provisioned servers.
Do you know if there is a way to install free licenses silently?

Thanks so far for your help,
Patrik

[MattP]

Hi Patrick,

There is no way to silently install the license. The activation record is tied to several reference points in the OS and is unique to each machine, and we don't have any way to silently generate a license activation.

Matt

[patrik33]

Hi Matt!

That's a pity.

However, then I do have to activate all the WinGate servers manually.

Many thanks,
Patrik

[adrien]

Hi Patrik

we would need to put support into the installer to generate an activation request and action it. It's a fairly basic https POST request to our activation server, with a bunch of Base64-encoded activation data.

We have a component that could do it, and add a command line switch I guess to activate a free license as part of the install, however there would be no great way to deal with activation errors (such as no network connectivity, DNS issues etc).

Adrien