Sites defined:
Question
How does site maintenance affect the Symantec Management Agent (formally Altiris Agent)?
Answer
Note: This content was created for NS 6.0 days but the principles mentioned here still applies to 7.0, 7.1, 7.5, 7.6 and 8.x.
The Altiris Agent no longer receives codebases for a package inside the Client configuration file (as in Notification Server 5.5).
After a new client configuration file is received, the Altiris Agent visits the GetPackageInfo.aspx page to obtain the appropriate package codebases for the site it is a member of before it will begin downloading the package.
The Altiris Agent should only receive codebases of Package Servers contained in the same site defined under Site maintenance.
Special conditions and expected behavior of the Agent is listed below:
Sites defined:
No Sites defined:
The Notification Server logs messages each time one of the above conditions occurs.
In NS 6.0: Inside the Reports tab, under the category "Altiris Agent Package info requests," there are a few reports which are based on these log messages.
In SMP 7.x & 8.x: Under SMP Console>Reports>All Reports>Notification Server Management>Server
How Site Maintenance affects Package Server Agents
Package Servers no longer receive codebases in the Client configuration file. Although the Client configuration file will list all of the packages to store in its repository, Package Servers also visit the GetPackageInfo.aspx page to obtain the appropriate package codebases before downloading any packages.
As of Notification Server 6.0 SP3 and later the concept exists of constrained and unconstrained Package Servers. Unconstrained package servers are allowed to download packages from the Notification Server, as well as from other Package Servers within the same site. Constrained Package Servers can only download packages from other Package Servers within the same site-never from the Notification Server. Whenever sites are defined and package servers are assigned to those sites, at least 1 "Unconstrained" package server must exist; otherwise, none of the constrained package servers will be able to download packages directly from the Notification Server.
Special conditions and expected behavior of Package Server is listed below:
NOTE: When a Symantec Management Agent with a constrained or unconstrained Package Server, or with no Package Server installed, reaches the default download retry of 240 minutes with no download source available, the SMP Server is provided as a last-resort download location. This is controlled in ITMS 7.6, 8.0, 8.1 with the MaxAgentDownloadTryingTimeMins setting in the CoreSettings.config file on the SMP Server. Setting MaxAgentDownloadTryingTimeMins to 0 effectively disables the retry limit where the SMP Server is provided as a last-resort download location.