CK:P client machines are either Windows PCs or Apple Macintoshes. Each platform consits of a hardware configuration and a software configuration. The software configurations for both platforms primarily consist of software packages available in the public domain.
Considerable effort has gone into automated methods for machine setup and software maintenance. On the PC side we have developed a program, PC-Remote-Build, which allows the automatic installation of system and application software from a Unix server. The same server allows users to check the integrity of software installed on the PC and to replace corrupted software with authoritative versions. This provides a very convenient means of updating PC software and of maintaining a uniform user environment across a large number of distributed remote sites.