Move Package Download folder?

JenH · 07-12-2005, 03:12 PM

I'm running out of space locally, so I've mapped to a filer and set the Package Download folder to the new location, however, nothing has downloaded to the new location. How do I force PM to move everything to the new folder? I've verified that the permissions are properly set so folders/files can be added with our Altiris domain account.

tootuff305 · 07-12-2005, 03:51 PM

Is this for the Notification server or package server?

JenH · 07-12-2005, 05:23 PM

Patch Management in the Notification Server itself. My package servers are fine.

Nick · 07-12-2005, 10:26 PM

Jen,

I am not 100% sure on this one but I don't think that the packages will update themselves unless something has changed with the package. I don't think the new location will qualify it.

What you might want to try that I have done in the past is to increment the version of the package from say 1.0 to 1.1. My lab server is down right now so I can't get you a screenshot to show you exactly where I mean.

Again I'm not sure if this will fix what you want to do but it is what I have done in the past to update a package when it has a batch file or vbscript that I have modified.

JenH · 07-13-2005, 12:59 PM

Hmmm...well, these are the Patch files that Patch Management automatically downloads. I've temporarily disabled all the security bulletins and will be re-enabling them today to see if files are re-downloaded to the new location. I fear I'll have to uninstall and re-install Patch Management in order for the server to realize I've moved the download location.

Tom.Reyntjens · 07-13-2005, 02:37 PM

I don't think disabling the bulletins will help. I think the packages will still be there. You can try deleting a bulletin, re-running PMIMPORT, enabling the bulletin, and see if that one is downloaded to the correct location.

JenH · 07-13-2005, 07:56 PM

Actually, disabling the bulletins did the trick. I disabled them, then re-enabled them 24 hours later. I now show all the re-enabled bulletins in the new folder location.

marteinn · 12-04-2005, 07:31 AM

HI

If you disable and re-enable bulletins the only things that happens is that they are only downloaded again. What we actually need to be done is that bulletins to be moved and all the software update packages distribution points to modified to the new location.

If this is possible without editing 300 updates its fine.

M

LordofthePatch · 12-04-2005, 12:38 PM

If you change your package download location, disabling and re-enabling the bulletins will cause the downloads to go to the new location. Creating a new software update task for that bulletin will cause a new policy to be created, and the GUID folder for each update in that bulletin to be shared out (from the new location).

There is no way to move you current software update packages, because they are also shares, which, by nature, cannot be moved after creation as the share will be removed.

marteinn · 12-06-2005, 07:21 PM

Well this how it works today, but think about it - it would really nice to have I task that does this. You might for several reasons want to move the updates, and because how many they are you might not want edit all pacakages.

Maybe someday it will.

M

LordofthePatch · 12-06-2005, 10:39 PM

Now that I think about it, I am wondering about the possiblity of writing a C# script to do this. I wrote a script to delete all of the packages from the updates folder in a handy little reverse PMImport tool, so I'm sure it wouldn't be too difficult. All I would have to do, is parse through the folder structure, update the locations of the packages in the database, move the packages to their new locations, and create new shares. The tricky part will be the shares, but I'll see what I can find out. This little tool would be very useful if I could figure it out. Let the design begin...

Hmmm.....

Nick · 12-07-2005, 01:05 AM

Ok.... I've got to learn C# now... No way I'm letting you have that much fun without me.

marteinn · 12-07-2005, 06:29 AM

If you can change it in the datebase then the share are no problem

I could live with in three steps
Move the updates
Change the tasks (package location in database)
Set new shares

There is only one thing that is stopping me and that is how update the db. I dont know in what table to find this (I tried to modify one table but got it not work)

I can get the share names and reshare with net share. Propably it can be done with vbscript also.

M

LordofthePatch · 12-07-2005, 11:39 AM

I tend to lean more towards C# now, because Altiris has an API which contains pre-built functions to make life easier. One example, is a DeleteItem function which when passed a single GUID, completely deletes that resource from the database (so it is the same as manually deleting the resource from the console). Plus, I am sure that for a task such as this one, Development is more likely to approve a tool I write in C# rather than VBScript. However, I will look into both and see which one would be more appropriate.

LordofthePatch · 12-08-2005, 01:13 AM

After doing some initial testing, to create a share for a folder which already exists takes less than 10 lines of code in VBScript, but over 100 in C#.

I think I will proceed with the first.

marteinn · 12-08-2005, 05:29 AM

Hi

I look forward to see what you come up with

cheers
M

LordofthePatch · 12-08-2005, 11:20 AM

Just a quick question, is the new download location on the same server, just maybe a different drive, or are you placing on a completely different machine? I need to know whether to test this with UNC paths, or just local paths.

I got all the files to move to a new location and the shares are created, just working on the database update now.

JenH · 12-08-2005, 05:48 PM

In my case, we moved from a local drive to a filer using an UNC path.

LordofthePatch · 12-08-2005, 06:23 PM

I think I've hit a snag. The current code copies all of the folders to the new location, updates the package location in the database, and creates the network share for each GUID folder. However, I have realized that each GUID folder is also a Web share. I have researched how to create Web shares via VBScript, but have yet to come up with any results.

LordofthePatch · 12-09-2005, 12:12 AM

I've since moved on to add some additional functionality to the EnableAllBulletins script. If you have no idea what this script is, it was released by Altiris as a tool to enable all bulletins that have not yet been enabled, and create tasks for them. I am going to modify it so that you can pass a .txt file with names of bulletins you wish to enable via command line. A lot of the concepts used in this code could apply to moving the old bulletins and creating new tasks for them. I should complete this by early next week and then I will jump back on this little project.

LordofthePatch · 12-11-2005, 08:17 PM

Ok, I have the script complete now. I will be on the phone with our Developers on Tuesday, and will probably have to get their approval before I can make it public. Once again, I'll keep you updated.

TRYDL · 05-11-2006, 11:17 AM

Long time reader, but first time poster

Was this vbscript / c## ever published?

Background information is the following:
A server migration going from old production hardware to new test hardware. I have successfully restored the Altiris DB to the new hardware but the package download folder for hundreds of packages is hardcoded to an E: drive. The new server does not have an E: .

I have redirected the package download folder on the new server to a UNC path on a NAS but would prefer not having to manually go through hundreds of patch packages doing a "Recreate all Packages" through the console.

Also apparently changing the 'package location' column in the table SWDPackage is not enough to properly redirect the packages since manually running the schedule task ns.package.refresh to rebuild the SMB paths fails on being unable to find the legacy E: path.

Is there a way to redirect hundreds of these packages through a process or script? Or did I miss something obvious.

Thanks in advance.

TRYDL · 05-23-2006, 11:52 AM

As a follow up for all those who need to redirect their PM storage location, the basic gist follows below :

1) Disable all enabled bulletins under Tasks
2) Delete all the bulletins once they are all disabled
3) Andrew has written a great c## script that does a reverse pmimport and deletes all PM packages. You can delete all packages under the Resources tab, but I have found, upon re-downloading those packages, your logs get filled with errors. C## script is the way to go

4) Once pmimport.cab get re-imported, re-enable all previous bulletins using another of Andrews c## scripts that references a text file of all the MS bulletins you want enabled.
5) Do a pilot of a patch deployment and keep watch of your logs to make sure it all went well.

Dont know if posting Andrew's scripts is allowed, but if anyone asks, I'll be glad to share

Cheers

EDIT ***********

Attached 2 Zip files.

LordofthePatch · 05-23-2006, 01:49 PM

I don't mind...

JenH · 10-27-2008, 09:06 PM

Has anything changed with this? I have to update the UNC path again (filer was upgraded to a new one and we have to switch to a DFS path). I've got one package server that won't pull down most of the older patches because they still point to the old UNC path, which no longer works.

If the process is the same (disabling all tasks) and the scripts still work with the current version of PM (6.2), then I'll go with it. Otherwise, would it be too difficult to update the scripts?

Thanks,