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SUS web server and casper config question

  • May 28, 2014
  • 2 replies
  • 26 views
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I'm not sure I understand something about software updates and how they're supposed to work within Casper. If I configure a software update server on a network segment, then machines on that network segment should get directed to http://softwareupdateserver:port/index.sucatalog

But Apple's software update directory structure has a catalogs folder that contains index.sucatalog and a downloads folder that actually contains the downloads that index.sucatalog directs you to.

I've got a confusing environment and I don't want to get too hung up on too many details, but needless to say I'm trying to get a branched reposado repository hosted on several IIS servers to actually act as Apple Software Update Servers via Casper. I can manually/scriptomatically force them by going to a deeper URL http://softwareupdateserver:port/html/contents/catalogs/index.sucatalog but I can't wrap my head around how to allow the native Casper way to work. Looking around the internets and jamfnation I can see that others have been down this road and it may entail loading the IIS rewrite module, but does anyone know if there's a way to avoid that, like getting Casper to direct Mac clients to go to the deeper URL?

    2 replies

    L
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    • lisacherie
    • Valued Contributor
    • May 28, 2014

    The CatalogURL used by a client is specific to the OS version on the client.

    There are a couple of options to send clients to the correct CatalogURL.

    One option making use of rewrite rules is to send all clients to a generic index.sucatalog URL and let the server then determine the correct CatalogURL based on the OS version the request was made.

    Another option is to pre-configure the full CatalogURL perhaps using smart groups based on OS version which would prevent needing the SUS rewrites.

    Personally I like the rewrites and at least on apache find them to be reliable. Sorry I don't have experience configuring these on IIS. Hope this helps.

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    • gabester
    • Author
    • Valued Contributor
    • May 29, 2014

    Lisa, thanks for the post. I think I've solved my problem for now but I have to try it on another server to verify that I've got it working well enough. The gist is that I hosted reposado's html/contents/catalogs folder as the root of an IIS site so that the casper software update magic works; then added a virtual directory to that site so that the contents from the index.sucatalog the clients are getting are available as well.

    This means that you can access index.sucatalog twice; at http://sus:port/index.sucatalog and at http://sus:port/contents/catalogs/index.sucatalog; but the most important part is the clients can now get their software updates successfully from the local server.

    Mind you, I have to reproduce this on a separate server to confirm that this is indeed what I did that worked without needing to load the IIS rewrite module or anything else that inadvertently created successful SUS conditions.

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