Best Practices for the LiveUpdate Administrator 2.3.x Downloads Location

Products

• Endpoint Protection

Issue/Introduction

Are there any special concerns for the LiveUpdate Administrator 2.3.x (LUA 2.3.x) Downloads folder?  What best practices ensure that this directory is managed properly?

Cause

The Downloads folder, also known as the “Manage Updates” folder is the location where the LiveUpdate Administrator program keeps its “permanent” copies of materials. The copies kept here are used to distribute the materials to all the Distribution Centers (DC’s) as needed. 

The default location on a Windows 2022 server is "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Symantec\LiveUpdate Administrator\Downloads." In releases before LUA 2.3.2, it was not possible to move this location after LUA 2.x is installed.  This could, in some instances, result in higher than anticipated space consumption on the C drive.

 

Resolution

Following these Best Practices should ensure the most stable and efficient use of the Downloads directory

• If the Downloads directory is not accessible, then LUA 2.3.x cannot function as designed. Therefore, Downloads directory should be placed on a drive local to the server. The LUA tomcat component requires quick access to Downloads, so a remote, mapped network folder would not be suitable as there may be issues with network speed or connectivity.
• When not using the default location on the C drive, it is strongly recommended to create a custom directory for the exclusive use of LiveUpdate Administrator 2.3.x.  For example: D:\LUA_Downloads.  Do not configure the root of a drive to be the Downloads directory (for example, D:\).  If an admin later configures the LUA server to use a different Downloads location, LUA would then purge all content from the old Downloads folder (D:\), deleting everything from the D drive!
• The Temporary Directory and the Download Directory should both be excluded from any real-time antivirus protection client.
• Older content in the Downloads/Manage Updates folder is purged automatically by LiveUpdate Administrator 2.3.x.  There is no need to manually perform any action on the subdirectories or files in this directory.  Do not attempt to manually remove "old" files as this will cause the LUA server's PostgreSQL database to become out of sync with what files are actually present.
  

   

To change the location where Downloads are stored, click on Configure, Preferences, and change the Download Directory under the Environment Variables section of the screen, then save changes.  

Additional Information

I cannot access the user interface of LUA. How can I find the Temporary Directory or Download Directory to exclude them from real-time AntiVirus?

- Default location for Temporary Directory is C:\TempDownload\

- Default location for Download Directory is C:\ProgramData\Symantec\LiveUpdate Administrator\Downloads

- To check the current location of the Temporary Directory in the LUA logs

  -- To navigate to the default location of the LUA logs, type:
     cd C:\Program Files (x86)\Symantec\LiveUpdate Administrator\logs

  -- To check for the current location of the Temporary Directory, type:
      find "miniTriFile not found on server : " lua-application.log | more

  -- The first two lines of output should be similar to the following: 
     ---------- LUA-APPLICATION.LOG
     2024-02-29 00:00:01,540 [pool-2-thread-3] INFO  download.CatalogDownloader [] - miniTriFile not found on server : C:\TempDownload\Downloads\1709164800432\1\sepc$20minidm$2014.3$20ru8_microdefsb.jun_symalllanguages_livetri.zip

  -- Note that the part of the path before the Downloads\ folder is the part that needs to be added as the exclusion to the configuration of the real-time antivirus client on the same machine as LiveUpdate Administrator