esesen

With all the daily activities that users have their computers go through, one could expect that over time the software on these devices usually becomes cluttered with unused and/or unwanted files, settings, and data as well as some kind of problem just waiting for the opportunity to halt your progress when you have to get something done yesterday! And what is the normal fix? Call your support staff and wait for them to work you into their schedule for the repairs. What if there was a way for you to fix the problem easily? Introducing Esesen. This software can return the device to an out-of-the-box state so that your productivity is as high as it was on the first day it was unpackaged! Not to be confused with the Windows restore feature, this software replaces your entire system with one that you choose to restore instead of a couple of files that Windows restore will replace (but often times does not actually resolve the problem and occasionally creates new problems).

Administrators will enjoy the variety of configuration options that pertain to this software including local and/or remote storage of images, optional WAN connectivity, and the ability to schedule automated restores in order to keep your home or business network in a constantly pristine state. And for those admins that are familiar with ssh, this software provides a way to remotely gain access into a workable system to perform any detailed modifications to the device that may be required.

License

This project's codebase is licensed under the CPLv2 unless a valid CPLv1 license has been purchased. More information about both of these licenses can be found under the "Our Licenses" link of our homepage.

Overview

Esesen was designed to keep a device working at its optimal performance at all times by periodically re-imaging it back to a fresh state as defined by the manufacturer, your administrator, or support staff containing little or no "contamination". With the use of this software on all the computers in your home or office, along with implementing the scheduling aspect, the result should end up becoming a self sustaining network (SSN aka Esesen)!

Of course problems can arise between the scheduled re-imaging, such as accidental deletion or updates that cause unintended consequences. Pick up some malware or get hit with Ransomware where your computers' contents are completely encrypted by a malicious attacker? How about a hardware failure? All of these would cause serious downtime for a home or business, but devices utilizing Esesen do not have to worry about a thing! The user has the ability to go into Esesen at any time in order to restore back to a known working state. For situations such as a drive failure or ransomware, booting off of an Esesen live CD or flash drive will quickly get you back up and running!

good defense against malware as the device can be restored to complete working functionality within minutes - even if you were attacked by Ransomware.

hardware failure: what happens if your drive crashes or fails - no problem, simply replace the drive, boot into a live cd and restore the device.

good for schools, etc

overview: Want to keep your computer working in a pristine state for as long as you own it? Esesen is your answer! This software can re-image your computer to any saved state manually or at a scheduled interval automatically! An ideal solution for labs, schools or other institutions that need to keep devices unmodified! Note that it can also be configured to retain any saved user data!

Caveats

As of the 2018.12.x.x version of the software, there are a couple of caveats that should be brought to your attention.

1. - if creating a local storage partition, the total number of partitions beforehand needs to be 3 so all will be primary (for mbr partition tables); gpt is not affected
2. - even though GPT tables are backed up, their backup at the end of the disk is NOT!!!
3. - when using .squash files, ntfs partitions do a fair amount of post-processing so be patient!!!
4. - analytics are not yet available
5. - the progress meter when dealing with ext/vfat file systems is just an approximate and may not go to 100%
6. - this has only been tested with traditional, single-disk computers. if Esesen is installed on a different disk other than the OS, results may not be desired.
7. - currently only identifies and works with grub (legacy) and syslinux on the Linux OS - patches for other bootloaders are welcome!
8. - when creating the initial image, do NOT include any user data since any files that are in the image overwrite what exists on the drive. If data is introduced afterwards, it will not be touched!
9. - windows updates will have to be reinstalled

Roadmap

To address some of the caveats described above and to expand the software as time progresses, we have outlined some items below that we would like to accomplish.

Installation

Just like the rest of our software, we have engineered our installation process to be as simple as possible. After downloading the desired version from our website, you can begin the installation process. Currently this process only has a text-based installer, but we will be adding graphical capabilities in a future version. Below we will cover the steps necessary to get the software installed.

File Types

Before we continue with the individual steps, it is important to define what the various file types are and the intended application for them. Currently there are four different downloads that are available for this software with each containing advantages and disadvantages.

windows only (easy to get going [additional step to get into software and configure], no LSB, have to update the software and reimage) linux only generic/live (can do LSB, depending on install method you do not have to reimage upon updating) standalone application (just the shell script itself)

• Extract This step is accomplished by right-clicking the downloaded file (Esesen_x.x.x.x.x.zip) and selecting the "Select All..." menu option. Clicking the "Extract" button on the follow-up prompt will extract the software into a folder name Esesen_x.x.x.x.x in your current location.

• Install Double-clicking the 'install' file (or typing 'install.bat' and pressing the ENTER key at the command line) will show a popup with all the current processes taking place. Any final message other than "Esesen has been installed successfully! Press any key to continue . . .", indicates a failure and you will need to consult your support staff or visit our forums.

NOTES:

• we are currently working on a graphical installer
• the a default administrators password will be the word 'password' (without quotes)

Uninstallation

Hopefully your choice to uninstall the software isn't a permanent one, but in the event that you do need to perform this function, simply go into your 'Control Panel' and click the "Add/Remove Programs"/"Programs and Features" icon or the "Uninstall a program" link. This will bring up a screen showing all the currently installed software. Scroll through the list until you find the 'Esesen' entry and click it. You should then see an "Uninstall" or "Uninstall/Change" button in the window to which you should click. This will open another popup showing you all the uninstallation tasks taking place. For any final message other than "Esesen has been uninstalled successfully! Press any key to continue . . .", then you should contact your support staff or visit our forums.

Network Designs

If your office consist of a room in your house, or actually is an office but only houses a handful of employees, then most of the time any servers in use are mainly for authentication and file sharing. While it is irrelevant whether the server is configured as a domain controller (DC) or a simple workgroup server, we do recommend having the clients of the network NOT be connected to a domain. Currently there are instances after a restoration where the client will need to be dropped and then re-joined to the DC. Not only will this step be prevented if the clients are never joined to a domain, but in the event that the server has to be replaced, the clients do not have to go through the process of migrating to the new server.

showing/hiding of the boot menu and how to get it to show if you hide it (e.g. grub2 using shift key)