How to mass deploy Prey for Linux
Download the latest version of Prey for Linux (not Prey for Ubuntu)
- Edit the config file included in the folder. In line 34 fill the value api_key with your account's API Key, save, and close. (You can find your API Key at the left column of your Prey Profile)
- Put the modified prey folder into any removable media you want to use to deploy Prey
- Copy this prey folder into the /usr/share folder of the device you want to install Prey into (using the terminal, sudo mv path_to_your_removable_media/prey /usr/share should work)
- Enable the universe repositories on Ubuntu. You can do this running software-properties-gtk and enabling the second option, Community-maintained free and open source software
- Run into a terminal sudo apt-get install curl imagemagick imagemagick-common libexplain30 libfftw3-double3 libilmbase6 liblqr-1-0 libmagickcore5 libmagickcore5-extra libmagickwand5 libnetpbm10 libopenexr6 netpbm streamer xawtv-plugins
- Run echo "*/20 * * * * /usr/share/prey/prey.sh > /var/log/prey.log" | sudo crontab -
- Optionally you can run /usr/share/prey/prey.sh to force the device to be immediately added to your Prey account, instead of the 20 minutes default interval
Image deployment
For admins making images of Ubuntu to install into multiple machines, Prey is even easier to deploy. Just make sure that:
- All these dependencies are installed: curl imagemagick imagemagick-common libexplain30 libfftw3-double3 libilmbase6 liblqr-1-0 libmagickcore5 libmagickcore5-extra libmagickwand5 libnetpbm10 libopenexr6 netpbm streamer xawtv-plugins
- You're not connected to the internet
- The prey folder with the edited config file (the one including your API key in the line 34) is located in/usr/share
- */20 * * * * /usr/share/prey/prey.sh > /var/log/prey.log is included into the the root user's crontab
After you follow these instructions, the devices will be added to your Prey account as soon as they connect to the internet.
Other Linux distributions
The instructions above are the same of all Linux distros. Just make sure you install all dependencies (Step #1 of "Image deployment"). Names of the packages could be different depending on your distribution.