SW Update Server

[Flash]

I’ve successfully set up SW Update service on 10.4.5, bound clients are pointed to the server via MCX settings. Unfortunately, this only works on 10.4 clients. Can I modify a plist on my 10.3 clients pointing them to my internal SW Update server? I assumed here, but no key for default server exists:
/Library/Preferences/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate.plist

For that matter, could you modify a plist file on 10.4 clients and NOT have to bind them to the domain?

[Anonymous]

First, here are the commands:

For all users and the system:
sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate CatalogURL http://your.softwareupdateserver.com:8088/

For just the system:
sudo defaults write /private/var/root/Library/Preferences/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate CatalogURL http://your.softwareupdateserver.com:8088/

I’m not sure of the reason for the distinction, so I set them both to my software update server.

I think that I found this elsewhere on afp548.com, but can’t quite remember.

In any case, there’s an excellent utility that helps with actually automating the auto software update feature, and it can be found at http://www.orblet.com/

Here’s what the developer had to say about this cool utility:

——————————————————

Managing Software Update with Open Directory is a nice feature of v10.4 Server, but trying to automate the delivery over those updates is a little cumbersome. Some users have set up a cron job to periodically execute the softwareupdate command-line utility. Doing so can present some issues like updates that require a restart, missed updates because the client was powered off during the scheduled execution, as well the question about applying updates while a user is currently logged into the client.

I have developed a utility called autosoftwareupdate to try to address those concerns. The autosoftwareupdate utility is a launchd daemon that periodically checks if any software updates are available for the system. By default, autosoftwareupdate will check for available updates hourly. The duration of time can be adjusted via its launchd property list file with a text editor or Lingon. All output, including progress, history and errors is logged to ‘/var/log/autosoftwareupdate.log’.

The utility is designed to run when a user is not logged into the system (excluding remote terminal sessions). If a user is not logged into the system, the utility will check for and apply all available software updates. The system will be restarted only if it is required by an update and there isn’t a user logged in (A user could log in from the time the software update started to the time the reboot would occur). If a network connection is not available while checking for a software update, autosoftwareupdate will log this and try to check again at the pre-configured interval. Also, if some updates were successful and others were not, this information will be logged.

Since autosoftwareupdate is run as a launchd item, a client that is asleep during the configured update interval, will have autosoftwareupdate executed when the client resumes from sleep.

The autosoftwareupdate utility can also be used in conjunction with Mac OS X Server’s Software Update Server feature, allowing you to filter out updates that have yet to be tested or approved by system administrators. In order to do this though, you may need to push out a file to clients rather than setting the managed preference in Open Directory. There have been instances where softwareupdate will contact Apple instead of your own Software Update Server when the client is at the LoginWindow. It appears that even if the managed preference is applied to a Computer List, the managed com.apple.SoftwareUpdate.plist file gets created at /Library/Managed Preferences/username/, causing the managed Software Update Server to be effective only when a user is logged in locally.

The workaround to this, if you are using autosoftwareupdate or still decide to do a cron job, is to execute either:

For all users and the system:
sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate CatalogURL http://your.softwareupdateserver.com:8088/

For just the system:
sudo defaults write /private/var/root/Library/Preferences/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate CatalogURL http://your.softwareupdateserver.com:8088/

To download an Installer package (Universal Binary): http://www.orblet.com/downloads/autosoftwareupdate.mpkg.zip

To download the project’s source: http://www.orblet.com/downloads/autosoftwareupdate.src.zip

The autosoftwareupdate utility is installed at ‘/usr/local/bin/autosoftwareupdate’. The launchd property list can be found at ‘/Library/LaunchDaemons/autosoftwareupdate.plist’.

[Flash]

Excellent, thank you.

Just for clarification, the above method only works with 10.4 clients.

[schilled]

Do either of you still have the installer for the autoupdate package? The link is dead and this is exactly what we want to implement. Also, are you still using this and is it working well for you?

Thanks

[johnaris]

Hi,

could you help me, i have just a one question, I have successfully created an update server,it is working very fine and all the clients are bound to this update server, what i have observed, is that, when new updates are available and being downloaded on the server this will show up in the update list in the update server and the OLD update version will be gone, like xsan, the latest version now is xsan 1.4.2, but i don’t want to update into this version since all our xsan system are running 1.4.1, when i try to search it on the update list in the update server, the xsan version 1.4.1, its not there anymore, but when i go to the files in /usr/share/swupd/html where the updates are saving and downloading the updates, the xsan 1.4.1 files are there.

is this the actual behavior of the Software Update service?, can i still show the old version of xsan in the update list on the update server so that i can enable it and can be seen in the client so that i can still update to this specific version?

please help, any advice?

note:
My server is Intel base and i’m running 10.4.10 Server

[Author]

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