Using casper for MSP, distribution points

[#1]

I am in the process of configuring the casper suite for use in a MSP environment, as such it will be desirable to use custom distribution points for each client we manage yet maintain a central JSS that all clients would check into. It is simple enough to scope each policy to a DP, however the maintenance and updating of each DP seems to be difficult using casper admin (seems that admin only wants to play with one DP at a time which is specified in JSS as primary). I was wondering is anyone has any ideas on possible workflows for this situation.

Jon Jopse, ACMT
Support Centre Tier(1)

Corporate Network Services
“Count on Us”
20010 Fisher Ave, Suite E
Poolesville, MD 20837
main: 240.425.8008 | fax: 301.349.2518
http://www.cornetser.com<http://www.cornetser.com/>

[talkingmoose]

You're correct that Casper Admin only deals with a primary distribution
On 7/1/11 1:57 PM, "Jon Jopse" <JJopse at CORNETSER.com> wrote:
point. Consider this your "master" repository.

You can use the JSS Setup Utility to define synchronization between your
master and secondary repositories. It will use rsync, I believe, and both
servers must support that application. Packages and scripts added to your
master will sync to the secondaries.

If you're wanting to only partially sync your master and secondary
repositories then I'm afraid you're out of luck. If only certain
repositories need certain files and scripts then you must copy those
manually.

--

William Smith
Technical Analyst
Merrill Communications LLC
(651) 632-1492

[donmontalvo]

We have Distribution Points on Xserve as well as NAS devices. We can't risk relying on the groups that manage/support the later, so we do manual sync. This way we have complete control, and this way there is less of a chance of hiccups. The only glitches, we need to have an admin workstation set up with Casper Admin in each geographical location, since there are latency issues that prevent us from syncing all the geographically dispersed Distribution Points from one location. It's a bit of extra work, but much less work than having to recreate our AAMEE packages that tend to "break" when relying on rsync automatic syncing.
"Smith, William" <William.Smith at merrillcorp.com> wrote:

It would be great if JAMF could provide a robo-copy like solution for our NAS devices. :)

Don

[talkingmoose]

In our case we don't need or want to have all packages synced from our
On 7/2/11 2:21 PM, "Don Montalvo" <donmontalvo at gmail.com> wrote:
primary distribution point to each of our dozen secondary distribution
points across the WAN.

I'd like to see a feature to add a package to Casper Admin and then copy
it immediately to the distribution points of my choice.

--

William Smith
Technical Analyst
Merrill Communications LLC
(651) 632-1492