Software Update Server Won’t work

[Waragainstsleep]

I recently tried to setup an Xserve as a software update server. It has been running for sometime but only as a QMaster node for compressing video. It wasn’t running any services at all.
I setup an open directory on it and created a “software update” user. I mirrored updates from Apple and when they had downloaded I started the softwre update service. I managed the software update preference for the user as always managed and entered the address of the xserve on port 8088.
I then bound an iMac test rig to the directory and logged in as the software update user.
On trying to run software update, I get an NSURL Error 1100 message, and the option to launch network diagnostics or quit.
I have tried adjusting the software update servers URL .local name, IP, with and without the http://, with and without the :8088. None of them worked.

What am I doing wrong?

[maccanada]

Not trying to be funny, but are you sure the service is still running. I find if I have any kind of outage and it can’t connect to Apple, it stops the service.

Double check the pref got written properly using defaults:

defaults read com.apple.SoftwareUpdate CatalogURL

Failing that, you can try adding index.sucatalog to the end of your url string – it’s not necessary, but it couldn’t hurt, either.

~Ian

[Waragainstsleep]

Many thanks for the response. I will give that a try.

[Waragainstsleep]

OK, tried checking that the pref was written properly, terminal says it doesn’t exist. Is there anything I can do about that?

[maccanada]

Well, a quick fix is set it in the terminal:

defaults write com.apple.softwareupdate CatalogURL "http://yourservername:8088"

~Ian

[Waragainstsleep]

OK, I was all set to try thi fix out, but when I arrived at work I found my boss had pulled the drive module from the Xserve and sent it to a customer as an emergency replacement!

I have switched to my home Tiger server test rig on an old MDD G4 tower. Trouble is, the software update service won’t even start on this one. It just spins until I quit Server Admin.

I’ve never really had to do much system maintenance on a server install. Are there a few basic principles to troubleshooting problems with services not running?

I tried Diskwarrior, but that didn’t help at all.

[maccanada]

Anything in the log files? (system.log for a start)
What does:
sudo serveradmin start swupdate
come back with?

~Ian

[Waragainstsleep]

Terminal returns a 0.

System.log just lists the command: serveradmin start swupdate.

The Server Admin app is just beachballing…..

[maccanada]

Maybe take a look in /etc/swupd and see if you have any .previous config files you can revert to?

~Ian

[agerson]

In workgroup manager make sure your URL end with a “/”. It will not work otherwise. How silly is that?

"http://yourservername:8088/"

[Waragainstsleep]

Now that last bit was helpful.

Tried it on my MDD after killing serveradmin (wasn’t starting any services at all). I then ran swupdate on its own and this seemed to work, but I couldn’t get Open Directory to run (didn’t have time to restart at the time), so I gave up on that one (its not the most reliable test rig, it has junk like Halo and Front Row installed on it).

The Xserve got its drive module back (or more accurately, replaced), so I wiped it and put a clean install on it. Set it up as before, added the “/” to the end of the SU URL pref and bingo! PowerBook in our showroom happily updates from the Xserve.

Tried logging into the SU user from another machine to do the same again, and we’re back to the old NSURL error message. Why does it only work on one machine??????

[Anonymous]

OK, apparently it works on most machines, but there are at least two it doesn’t work from. Any ideas?

The non-working machines are a G4 iMac and a Dual core 2.3 PowerMac G5. They have lots of extra software installed on them. The machines which work are practically brand new with clean installs.

[Waragainstsleep]

OK, solved that last bit, so my software update server is now working well.

One last question: Is there any way to connect a Mac to an SU server without having to bind to a directory service?

Many thanks to all for the helpful contributions so far.

[maccanada]

defaults write com.apple.SoftwareUpdate CatalogURL “http://yourserver:8088/”

You can also add index.sucatalog after the final / but it should work either way.

[Waragainstsleep]

I did try that once. Perhaps I’ll try it again.

[Author]

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