Could not mount a distribution point

ernstcs
Contributor III

Since it was brought up in another thread, and someone else mentioned they are seeing this on occasion, I though it best to start a thread for it.

Since moving to a Windows based SMB distribution point, I am seeing the following error, specifically with a logout triggered policy:

Error: Could not mount a distribution point

The shares are fine in terms of permissions because they can image fine.

These are AD bound Macs running 10.6.8. At login their AD SMB network share mounts, and we mount two additional SMB shares with policies. None of those shares point the same box as the distribution point.

This one will drive me nuts if I don't get it sorted out.

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

cvgs
Contributor II

That's a known bug when using SMB DPs. We are triggering policies from within another policy, and that also consistently leads to policy failures. As a workaround, we added an HTTP DP and use that for our nested policies by overriding the default DP; far from ideal, but at least it works.
That bug is my biggest itch right now with the JSS.

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18 REPLIES 18

frozenarse
Contributor II

I'm seeing similar issues.

Lion 10.7.4 clients bound to AD
JSS version 8.52
Windows based JSS Share

It appears that some policies aren't actually unmounting the JSS CasperShare when they are done. The next policy that comes along pukes out because the share is already mounted.

That's about all the info I have at this point.

ernstcs
Contributor III

Nearly forgot:

JSS Version 8.6
Distribution Point is Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise using accounts local to that machine only, not a domain account.

And that's my issue as well, Greg. Then I get a bunch of lovely caspershare folders in Volumes with numbers after them.

barber
New Contributor

I've had issues but only with deploying any mpkg's.

frozenarse
Contributor II

When I see a machine failing policies due to this I send a Unix Command via remote to unmount the volume. After that things work again.
diskutil unmount force /Volumes/CasperRemote

ernstcs
Contributor III

It's happening all over the place though, not just one machine.

frozenarse
Contributor II

We are seeing it sporadically. I'm just using that command as a temporary workaround until I get some time to dig into it further. Hopefully I will get a chance to log a call with JAMF later today.

lisacherie
Contributor II

Just to throw this up as well.

The could not mount distribution point error is also seen here with problems to do with deploying certificates - still working through this one.

Prior to installing the certificates policies are fine and distribution points mount.

The macs require a machine certificate issued by a windows CA. The machine certificate if installed manually there is no problem mounting the casper distribution point.

However if installing the machine certificate via a .mobileconfig file (either manually double clicking or via Casper configuration profiles) The host will no longer be able to mount the distribution point and all policies fail.

A sudo jamf enroll when the client is in this state will then allow the client to mount the distribution point and run policies.

ernstcs
Contributor III

Currently are not enforcing certificate based communications and this is still happening. Will be moving to certificate based though shortly.

EightQuarterBit
New Contributor III

Could the Windows server be opportunisticly locking (http://www.superbase.com/services_tech_support_oplocks.htm) the files of the share when a Mac attempts to access them? While one Mac is active on the share with read/write privileges it may be locking out other Macs.

That's just my random, off-the-cuff stab at the matter, so take it for what it's worth.

cvgs
Contributor II

That's a known bug when using SMB DPs. We are triggering policies from within another policy, and that also consistently leads to policy failures. As a workaround, we added an HTTP DP and use that for our nested policies by overriding the default DP; far from ideal, but at least it works.
That bug is my biggest itch right now with the JSS.

frozenarse
Contributor II

Christoph - Do you happen to know the bug ID on that?

ernstcs
Contributor III

@Greg, thus far there have not been many computers hitting the servers, classes aren't in session right now, so all of the hits to the share are fairly isolated. We have lots of shares hit with multiple machines all the time without issue.

Guess I'll be stepping up my move to HTTP DP here...was planning on it anyway.

frozenarse
Contributor II

We are in a similar situation here. With school starting i'm concerned that this will become a bigger issue.

I haven't looked into the HTTP option at all so if that is what is required to resolve this, I'll need to start down that path soon.

If this is a known bug is JAMF suggesting that folks enable HTTP? Is that a big deal? (i'm off to do research now. Just wondering how major of switch this will be)

ernstcs
Contributor III

Greg, I enabled HTTP on our distribution points today, it's fairly easy. Went as far as doing it over HTTPS and requiring authentication. Works well thus far, the errors have gone away. You also get the benefit of resumable downloads.

The only things I'd note for IIS On Windows is that I disabled anonymous access, enabled basic authentication, required SSL and installed the necessary certificate into IIS for the site I'm using (your clients must trust this, too), and then I added/modified MIME types for .pkg, .mpkg, .dmg, .bom, .pl, and .sh to be 'application/octet-stream' so they download properly. If you have other types in there for some reason (I've seen a few JSS' with other "stuff", quite odd) you'll likely need to add those, too.

I figure this was the quickest way to resolve the issue as I have a feeling the SMB share mounting issue will persist for some time before getting corrected.

ernstcs
Contributor III

Hmmmm, having issues with PKGs, which I'll assume MPKGs as well, with using HTTPS from IIS7, with authentication. The package downloads to /Library/Application Support/JAMF/Downloads/, but once installer tries to install it I get invalid path. Same thing happens if I try to cache it then install it. If I even try to double-click what it downloaded it's corrupt somehow. Happened to multiple PKGs. If I force back to SMB, works fine. Someone know something simple I'm missing with IIS settings or something else? DMGs and scripts work great, trading one solution for another problem it seems.

ernstcs
Contributor III

So along with my issues getting PKGs and MPKGs to come over HTTPS, I'm now seeing that 10.7 clients don't want to get SH files over HTTPS either, while the older OSes do just fine. I haven't tried 10.8 yet. Time to fire back up my old XServe just to be an AFP DP?

Kumarasinghe
Valued Contributor

@ernstcs

Have a look in the post here to setup IIS correctly.
https://jamfnation.jamfsoftware.com/discussion.html?id=4266#responseChild23559

ernstcs
Contributor III

I realized what my mistake was, I started this thread with one particular topic, but once it came around to issues with IIS I never went back into search discussions for IIS, and that thread above of course was the top one. I'll give these settings a whirl later today. I'm sure switching my MIME type settings will correct the issues.

I fired up my old XServe and did an easy replication in Casper Admin and put an AFP DP in place. Naturally that works great, but those servers have gotta go unfortunately.

Thanks, Kumarasinghe