Omar's Blog on Systems Management: System Center Configuration Manager, SCCM, ConfigMan

SCCM Certificate Infrastructure example and checklist

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 13:13:51 GMT

Microsoft has published a few technet articles about the Certificates that are neccesary to have SCCM run in Native mode. They provide guidelines and a example setup of the certificate infrastructure. You can find it at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb680312(TechNet.10).aspx

SCCM R2 and SoftGrid Highlight review

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 19:58:18 GMT

The full integration of MAV 4.5 (SoftGrid) and SCCM and how well it is done really makes me happy. I have made a short high light report on the most important points they have presented during MMS 2008.

Infrastructure integration

the current SVAS infrastructure has been integrated into SCCM 2007 R2. By using HTTP and Virtual directories, it is now possible to stream any application from a IIS based Distribution Point.
HTTP streaming: SVAS used RTSP RTP protocols to manage streaming. The session I attended wasn't suitable to ask the presenter to elaborate on how streaming was controlled via HTTP. I'll add some info at this point when I know more!

Console integration

All deployment activities are integrated into the SCCM console. MSFT took care to have all former SG UI actions to deploy applications to look like the regular work you do in SCCM when you deploy a classic application. Changes have been made to the Advertisements interface to allow streaming from an available distribution point. The DP properties window now contains a 'Streaming' tab to enable / disable streaming.

Managed installation / deinstallation will only be available for virtualized applications, so if you are a package specialist and you do understand which way the word is coming to: You know which training / specialization you should choose.

SCCM: Maintenance Windows Explained

Mon, 21 Jan 2008 19:37:36 GMT

In ConfigMgr there is a new feature that hasn’t gotten much attention called Maintenance Windows. This is a feature that I have heard numerous requests for and it gets a bit closer to the infamous ‘Big Red Button’.

SCCM: International Client Packs (ICP) available

Wed, 16 Jan 2008 07:23:08 GMT

Finally, they 're here!

ICP's are used to present the SCCM client interface in the same language as the client locale. So your French and German collegues will be happy again! Dowload can be done at

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=9DF19109-C067-46C7-89F6-1B3D17D6F615&displaylang=en

SCCM: PXE Service Point setup procedure

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 12:53:31 GMT

By request, a step-by-step procedure how to configure a PSP. I'll presume that you will add the PSP role on one of your current Site Systems, otherwise you need to know how to add a new Site System to a Site.

On the Site System (Windows 2003 SP 2) server that will act as the PSP, go to Add or Remove Programs (Control Panel), Add/Remove Windows components and select Windows Deployment Services. Click next to start the installation. Keep installation source at hand, the wizard will ask for it's location. At the end of the installation, click Finish and reboot the server.
After reboot is complete Do Not Configure WDS using any GUI that is added during installation.
From the SCCM console select the site system and add the PSP role. Verify that no errors have occurred using status messages and logs.
From the SCCM console deploy the boot-images to the SMSPXEIMAGES$ share that is mentioned in the Distribution Point wizard. If you have multiple PSP in your environment, you will see multiple SMSPXEIMAGES$ shares (on different servers ;-)).
As a final check, verify if the REMINST share is available on your PSP's. You'll find the SMSPXEIMAGES$ share as a subdir.

SCCM: No DHCP offer for PXE boot (bare metal) in a central DHCP / local PSP environment

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 11:11:57 GMT

Just a benign issue, but when you are starting with SCCM OS deployment, it is a good one to look up for troubleshooting

I just got off the phone talking to one of my infra architect collegues who is responsible for the design and realization of a new environment. I contributed with my first SCCM design, including PSP (WDS) functionality for all locations, but with a central DHCP. In this case you need extra IP helpers to forward DHCP requests to the central DHCP and to the local PSP.

When trying to deploy a new OS to a 'bare metal' system, they ran into the situation that they did not get a DHCP offer for that system. They first thought it might be a problem with the DHCP forwarders, but all other production systems worked well. They discovered that the system wasn't added to the SCCM database, which caused the PSP not to react to the request.

SCCM: PXE Service Point (PSP) installation issues

Mon, 14 Jan 2008 22:40:43 GMT

Setting up a PXE Service Point (PSP) for the first time in SCCM can be quite confusing. The SCCM help files contain quite a lot of information. But for me, the information on how to configure components as WDS or WSUS is too limited. I found the correct procedure on the SCCM newsgroup but that did not save me from some interesting issues that one might run in to.

I Hosted my RIS service on the same server was hosting my SMS 2003 server ) and that went well. For SCCM (Tried to upgrade, went sour and did a clean install of SCCM) I needed the WDS service, so I installed SVR 2003 SP2 as prereq for SCCM and upgraded my RIS installation. WRONG!

If you plan to host your PSP on the same machine that is currently your RIS/WDS server, I would recommend to transfer this functionality to another machine for the time being. SCCM PSP and 'flat' RIS/WDS solutions do not work together well because both will want to answer to PXE requests, but WDS was first… . The funny part is that you can actually activate the PSP role and setup the SCCM boot image distribution point (SMSPXEIMAGES$) that will be created under the existing REMOTEINSTALL directory (REMINST share), but ‘Nice try – No cigar’. Yet.

I did the URIA tango (Uninstall-Reboot-Install-Again) a few times for WDS service (thought I had to configure it, but no, just install it and do not touch any WDS interface) and finally activated the PSP role when I noticed that the component failed to install (PXEMSI.log: Error 25020. Setup failed because it could not configure WDS. The error code is 0004005’)

It seemed that the URIA's for WDS caused the creation of multiple Remote Install folders on different drives of my SCCM server. After removing these and underlaying folders (check if the REMINST share and SMSPXEIMAGES$ shares are deleted!) and a final WDS URIA the PXE service point installed correct.

BTW: When you activate the PSP role, it will create the remoteinstall and underlaying SMSPXEIMAGES$ share on the disk with the highest amount of free disk space. I have not tried to place no_sms_on_drive.sms to counter this behaviour. But would it not be nice to configure this through the SCCM interface?

SCCM: multiple PXE Service Point deployment considerations

Tue, 18 Dec 2007 14:22:40 GMT

It is quite likely that your current network infrastructure has been designed to keep all intensive network data within the LAN (e.g. your distribution points @ office locations). If you are considering the same for OS deployment, you might want to plan a PXE Service Point (PXE SP) on each office location and prevent running the boot-image over the WAN. Ease of implementation will depend on the way you have deployed your DHCP services.

The PXE PS depends on the Windows Deployment Service (WDS) that is in general responsible for the answering to PXE requests and hosting boot /OS images. Within the Microsoft DHCP service, these requests are part of the DHCP broadcast of a DHCP client for an authorized DHCP server to offer a IP address. So ease of deployment will be depending on your Infra Architecture.

In general there are two types of DHCP implementations: a central DHCP service that services all sites, or a multiple DHCP servers that service designated sites / locations. If you are using the decentralised DHCP service model and you are not going to install the PXE SP on the same server that hosts the DHCP service, you are quickly done. After running the PSP role wizard the PSP will use parts of the underlying WDS service to listen to DHCP broadcasts with TFTP service requests. After receiving a IP-address you can hit [F12] (or run that advertised task using WOL - really cool) and start OS deployment.

If you are using a central DHCP service, you probably use the IP helper table of your routers to pointcast the DHCP broadcast to the Central DHCP. To successfully resolve PXE requests to the 'remote PXE SP' you have to add IP helpers that will simultaniously pointcast DHCP broadcasts to the 'remote PXE SP'.

The use of IP Helpers is Microsoft's preferred way to route DHCP broadcasts in stead of using DHCP options. For more information on how to manage PXE requests and DHCP, check the WDS white paper, Chapter 5.

Just for the record: Don't configure WDS using any interface. SCCM will take care of that.

Fix for SMS_OFFER_STATUS_SUMMARIZER error in SCCM coming...

Thu, 06 Dec 2007 11:10:49 GMT

from Rod Trent's blog @ MyITforum.com:

Good evening all,

Please don't light up the phones to support quite yet, but the hotfix for this issue has been built and tested.

This is a long note but I wanted to cover the details for you all.

KB945898 is the article to reference, it is not quite live yet as we're finishing review, but I'll cover the highlights below.

Within the next 1-2 hours (should be no later than ~9:30PM EST tonight) the fix will be available via a call to support to have them send you the hotfix.

Simultaneously we're releasing this to the download center, but that could take another 24 hours. If that release estimate changes in either direction I will again let you all know.

SCCM: No advertisement status / SMS_Offer_Status_Summerizer does not start / No Component Status

Wed, 05 Dec 2007 23:29:59 GMT

Since the beginning of this month I noticed that the SCCM advertisement status is not being revised or visible for certain advertisements. Futher more when checking the SCCM offersum.log, there is a strange error message containing:

>> Tally 00011280001F2000. New Start Time: 12/01/2007 00:00:00, New Expire Time: 12/08/2007 00:00:00

>> An exception was raised: Unspecified error

Other syptoms:

- Offer status is no longer processed and .SVF files begin to backlog in the \inboxes\offersum.box folder on a site server.

- Advertisement Status node does not show newly added advertisements

- Component Status thread State is stopped and no updates on errors, warnings and information take place.

- Symptoms mentioned occur after december 1st, 2007

Microsoft is aware of the situation and I found this post with a reaction of Wally Mead:

Microsoft is aware of the offer status issue affecting System Center Configuration Manager 2007 (SCCM) customers.

The typical symptom is that offer status is no longer processed and .SVF files begin to backlog in the \inboxes\offersum.box folder on a site server.

Offersum.log shows entries similar to the following are noted:

---

---->: Tally 00011280001F2000. New Start Time: 12/01/2007 00:00:00, New Expire Time: 12/08/2007 00:00:00

---->: An exception was raised: Unspecified error

Warn>: Could not initialize the summarizers properties.

---

This issue came about starting December 1, 2007 due to an incorrect date calculation in the Offer Status Summarizer component and will affect all SCCM sites (both evaluation and licensed RTM version).

There are currently no supported workarounds to this issue.

Some customers have reported modification of the Site Control file have made the issue appear to go away, but this is not supported and the long term ramifications currently unknown.

A hotfix for this issue is under development at the highest priority.

The current plan of record is that once built and tested, the fix will be made available via the hotfix self-service portal so that a call to CSS will not be required to obtain it.

Further information, including the KB article number, how to obtain the fix, and all relevant detail, will be sent back out to the community when ready.

Any changes to the release plan and any schedule updates will be communicated as well.

*********************************************************

I have nothing else I can add to this. I do NOT know when the hotfix will be available. And as you see above, there is NO workaround for this. You just have to live with it until we get a hotfix available.

Please do not create additional posts on this issue, it will only make more posts we have to respond to with the same answer. AS SOON AS THE HOTFIX IS AVAILABLE, I'LL UPDATE THIS POST.

Thanks,

Wally