Macintosh clients are unable to download plug-in upgrade packages

Products

• IT Management Suite

Issue/Introduction

Macintosh agents were suddenly unable to download package files. It was not clear what change had been made.

The agent logs contained a continual pattern similar to the following for every package that needed to be download 

WARN 2019-07-05 11:45:29.619       210  123145347371008  PackageDelivery > Empty codebases from NS for package {17872B48-9792-4C23-9783-D9BFDE505FC3}.
DEBG 2019-07-05 11:45:29.620       210  123145347371008  SecureStore > Failed to load item nsagent/packages/17872B48-9792-4C23-9783-D9BFDE505FC3/package.xml: 2165571600, Cannot open file for reading
WARN 2019-07-05 11:45:29.621       210  123145347371008  PackageDelivery > There are no cached codebases, download is not possible.
WARN 2019-07-05 11:45:29.621       210  123145347371008  PackageDelivery > Failed to get package {17872B48-9792-4C23-9783-D9BFDE505FC3} codebases. Error = 2147554186
NOTE 2019-07-05 11:45:29.622       210  123145347371008  PackageDelivery > CDownloadThread::WorkerFunction: Start download failed for PKG[{17872B48-9792-4C23-9783-D9BFDE505FC3} - /opt/altiris/notification/nsagent/var/packages/{17872B48-9792-4C23-9783-D9BFDE505FC3} - {E767AC81-08D6-43F1-A295-CA56BDFE7E2E}(1)], retry later
NOTE 2019-07-05 11:45:29.622       210  123145347371008  PackageDelivery > DownloadQueue::ProcessDownloadResult: Result - -2147413110, Package - {17872B48-9792-4C23-9783-D9BFDE505FC3}
NOTE 2019-07-05 11:45:29.623       210  123145347371008  PackageDelivery > CDownloadListItem::RetryLater: Set package PKG[{17872B48-9792-4C23-9783-D9BFDE505FC3} - /opt/altiris/notification/nsagent/var/packages/{17872B48-9792-4C23-9783-D9BFDE505FC3} - {E767AC81-08D6-43F1-A295-CA56BDFE7E2E}(1)] to download one more time 96 minutes later, next retry number 6 starts 13:21:29.

The NS was giving out codebases.  A look at a profiler trace showed that the response was giving out 1-2 possible package sources to contact. But the Macintosh client was not receiving the response.

The client was getting a response from the NS but it was not in an encrypted format; therefore it was not trusted and the response was discarded.

Environment

ITMS 8.x

Cause

The following registry setting (per KB 179874 "Viewing codebases returned to the Altiris Agent through getpackageinfo.aspx request" ), which is used to troubleshoot GetPackageInfo requests, was set to 0 on the SMP Server:    

HKLM\Software\Altiris\eXpress\Notification Server\SW Delivery\  EncryptPackageInfo

This was causing the responses to be non encrypted which certain client OS security settings require.

Resolution

Set the value of EncryptPackageInfo to 1 or delete it from the registry. The SMP Server will default to encrypting GetPackageInfo responses.