New Install, should I go JDS or FileShare DP?

[dooley_do]

Hi,

We have purchased Casper and I am in the process of arranging our jumpstart. I am getting our operations team to build the required VMs. JSS will be running on WS 2012 R2. I now need to decide on whether to go for a Fileshare DP (WS 2012 R2) or a JDS instance (RHEL).

JDS seems to offer some extra functional with regards to eBooks which may be useful in the future (we are a University) but the downside is that our team is far more comfortable with Windows servers. The JDS looks to be set and forget but I would need to ensure it is patched regularly.

What are the thoughts of the community? We only have one site and initially we are only going to be supporting up to 500 devices so I believe a single DP will suffice.

Thanks

[perrycj]

@dooley_do Welcome! Just thought I would point out some discussions about JDS and whatnot, to see if it something you would want to pursue. I'm sure you've done your homework already but maybe these posts will give extra insight and help you out:

https://jamfnation.jamfsoftware.com/discussion.html?id=11027

https://jamfnation.jamfsoftware.com/discussion.html?id=11041

https://jamfnation.jamfsoftware.com/discussion.html?id=11177

[Josh_Smith]

I have been looking into this as well, the information I have found indicates there may still be some issues with netboot imaging from a RHEL JDS.

See:
https://jamfnation.jamfsoftware.com/discussion.html?id=9144
https://jamfnation.jamfsoftware.com/discussion.html?id=9538
https://jamfnation.jamfsoftware.com/discussion.html?id=10819

[dooley_do]

Hmm, quite a few things to consider there with the JDS. I think I might stick to what I know for the time being and go with a fileshare on WS 2012 R2 and revisit it again later. Thanks for the links!

[were_wulff]

@dooley_do][/url

Just to add, currently there are some issues between Mavericks' SMB2 and Windows SMB; the issues seem more prevalent (okay, pretty much universal) on Windows 2008R2 servers, but we've seen them on 2012 servers as well.
On 2012 servers, the issues don't seem to happen as consistently as they do on 2008 servers, but they're still present and can still cause some headaches.

Best we've been able to dig up by scouring Apple's forums and other blogs that have posts on the topic is that SMB doesn't always care for the way SMB2 passes credentials, and we see things like:

- Known good credentials being rejected, both when mounting manually or when using Casper Admin.

- Long delays with folder listings (if mounted manually), sometimes up to and over two minutes.

- Failure to mount the DP in Casper Admin (due to the delay mentioned above)

- Inability to connect to the SMB share with any sort of regularity, sometimes it works, other times you can't connect at all.

- Transfer speeds so slow that the connection typically times out and disconnects from the share.

- Due to the above, we are unable to save compiled configurations when the distribution point is a Windows based SMB share.

Linux SMB shares seem to have fewer issues, but can still run into the above issues as the problem appears to be between SMB2 and the older SMB protocol.

There is a pretty decent thread on JAMF Nation about Windows SMB shares and Mavericks here that would be worth a read:
https://jamfnation.jamfsoftware.com/discussion.html?id=11266

A couple of Apple threads:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5467191
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5483728
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5500165

If a JDS isn't something that's really viable due to the RHEL JDS limitations, and we're unable to use a Mac as the JDS, it may be worth considering a standard HTTP share, a Mavericks based SMB2 share, or an AFP share instead.

Amanda Wulff
JAMF Software Support

[dooley_do]

Thanks Amanda,

In my test environment we setup before purchasing I used a WS2012 R2 box and enabled SMB sharing and also setup IIS on the box so it could share via HTTP. This worked okay in testing and the clients did their downloading via http. I cannot purchase Mac hardware to stick in our datacentre as I need to run it all on VMware using supporting configurations. I didn't try any PXE booting with this setup, is it supported?

Thanks

[were_wulff]

@dooley_do

I did a little checking, and it looks like PXE booting isn't supported for JSS related things, and having Netboot and PXE going on the same network can potentially cause issues with both (usually mDNS related). We've had some customers who have set up both, and managed to get it working, but from a support standpoint, we recommend Netboot and aren't able to provide much support for PXE.

Slight change for me, as the last place I worked used PXE exclusively for their imaging (both Macs and PCs) and made faces at the idea of Netboot!

I did find a Feature Request asking for some PXE support, but it's stamped as Not Planned, there is some good information in the comments, however:
https://jamfnation.jamfsoftware.com/featureRequest.html?id=477

That said, I did a quick JN search and found a few threads that have people who have, or want to, set up both so those might be helpful to look through. It looks like the main theme seems to be, "It will work, but you have to set up IP helpers correctly to avoid conflicts and failures". It also looks like the PXE environments are set up mainly for Windows or Linux imaging, and Netboot is still used for the Macs:

https://jamfnation.jamfsoftware.com/discussion.html?id=7420
https://jamfnation.jamfsoftware.com/discussion.html?id=7759
https://jamfnation.jamfsoftware.com/discussion.html?id=7097

Hopefully, someone with an environment using both, or who has managed to get PXE to work with Imaging, can chime in here as well!

If all else fails, creating a new thread on the topic might get the attention of someone who has that sort of setup going already.

Amanda Wulff
JAMF Software Support