Can 10.5.8 Server serve 10.6 updates using Software Update Services?

A little late to the party on this one, but this looks awesome! One question: do you still retain the ability to download only the updates you want via SA, or do these changes require you to download the entire library?

Thanks,
Fred

I have followed all the directions to a T and all of the new snow leopard updates show up in my updates list. It appears that things are downloading because my network activity is way up.

The only thing that is concerning me right now is that every second I get this error in the error log
(2)No such file or directory: mod_bandwidth : Can't create/access master file /etc/swupd/apachebw/master/15:683584

I assume it is trying to create a directory for downloading the new updates. Any thoughts?

Message was edited by: Brian Critchlow

Dont forget to add a redirect in your webserver like I did. Took me 3 days to figure it out.

/content/catalogs/others/index-leopard-snowleopard.merged-1.sucatalog
redirects to
http://myserver.com:8088/index-leopard-snowleopard.merged-1.sucatalog

@Brian Critchlow: can you help me out, please?
I did exaclty as described above, but I`m getting no result.
In SUS I see new updates, for Snow Leopard, but they are all greyed out!
Nothing helps, not restarting the service, not refreshing, copy now button is not responding.

So, as you suggested, I changed in /usr/share/swupd/html/content/meta/mirror-config-1.plist file the last three entries after <key>CatalogsList</key>, swscan.apple.com with myserver.example.com:8088
All three entries because I have mixed network with all OS-ses, from 10.4 to 10.6
swupd syncdlog shows:
swupd_syncd[351] <Error>: Unable to retrieve one or more of the catalogs listed in the index
swupd_syncd[351] <Error>: swupd_syncd failed with CantCacheDataException: Couldn't write http://myserver.example.com:8088/content/catalogs/index.sucatalog to /usr/share/swupd/html/content/catalogs/index.sucatalog.apple. Error message:file doesn’t exist
swupd errorlog shows:
File does not exist: /usr/share/swupd/html/content/catalogs/index.sucatalog
File does not exist: /usr/share/swupd/html/content/catalogs/others/index-leopard.merged-1.sucatalog
File does not exist: /usr/share/swupd/html/content/catalogs/others/index-leopard-snowleopard.merged- 1.sucatalog
I checked by hand and missing files are all there, now I`m stuck at dead end

Thanks for help in advance!

Have you done step 4 as layed out by Jan?

4) Edit /etc/swupd/swupd.plist and change the metaIndexURL entry to look like this:

<key>metaIndexURL</key>
<string> http://myserver.com:8088/content/meta/mirror-config-1.plist</string>
<key>portToUse</key>

once you edit the two plist files, you should be at the stage where SWUPD begins to download the new updates. Do you see the blue dot next to each update showing that they have been copied? If so, have you checked 'enable' next to them to make them available to your clients?

What about serving Windows updates? Everything works great for 10.4/5/6 updates, but when I add this line:

<string> http://swscan.apple.com/content/catalogs/others/index-windows.merged-1.sucatalog</string>

to the CatalogsList array in the mirror-config-1.plist file, I start getting the following error when I start SUS:

<Error>: swupd_syncd failed with SUCatalogLoaderException: We've been foiled by the SUCatalogLoader: no local display name. Drat.

Any ideas? The Snow Leopard SUS manual contains exactly zero info on Windows updates.

Ok, I must be missing something here or maybe I am just not patient enough.

I have followed all the instructions and the updates appear to be downloading, but I do not see the catalog file to create a symbolic link to.

ls /usr/share/swup/html/content/catalogs/others
index-leopard-snowleopard.merged-1.sucatalog.apple
index-leopard-snowleopard.merged-1.sucatalog.apple.previous
index-leopard.merged-1.sucatalog.apple
index-leopard.merged-1.sucatalog.apple.previous


I do not have index-leopard-snowleopard.merged-1.sucatalog
or index-leopard.merged-1.sucatalog

do the downloads need to complete before those files will generate or have I missed a step?

Yep, I was just not patient enough, the catalog file load after all the software updates have been copied.

Everything works #1 Ay OK now.

Haven't had the chance to try this yet but it's exactly what I've been looking for. In December we replaced several older XServes with two new Intel machines and I've just reformatted one of the old ones to use exclusively as a SUS. If it works I'll be delighted.

I believe I have everything set up according to the instructions. I've stopped and started SUS, cleared my DNS cache, then try to connect to download updates. However, I get a "Software Update can't check for updates because of a network problem" message. When I ping swscan.apple.com, it does respond back with the IP address of my local SUS server, which indicates to me my DNS is set up properly. (My SUS server gets its DNS from a remote server.)

When I navigate to http://swscan.apple.com:8088/index.sucatalog, the catalog page comes up, but in the updates list, it has http://mydomain.org:8088/content/downloads/etc instead of http://mysus-server.mydomain.org:8088/content/downloads/etc. mydomain.org is a completely different server from mysus-server.mydomain.org. Could this be the issue? If so, then how do I get it to list the correct URL? If this isn't the issue, then any ideas what it could be?

Thank you for any assistance you can provide. I'm new to Mac, but not to Linux or Windows.

Message was edited by: Marshmallow Bunny

OK, I figured out the network problem message. I needed to enter "defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate CatalogURL http://mysus-server.mydomain.org:8088/index-leopard-snowleopard.merged-1.sucatal og" at the terminal prompt. However, I have several hundred Macs in my network, so this isn't feasible. Also, it seems logical to me hacking the DNS to point to my server should do the trick without having to touch all the clients, but it isn't working. Without changing the CatalogURL defaults, the clients don't appear to be contacting my SUS server, even though it responds to ping and web requests. Any ideas?

Marshmallow Bunny,

check out this article on MacOSXHints.com, it should get you up and running transparently w/o editing the host files on each client.

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20071009082248452

Thank you, Geoffrey. I've been banging my head against those instructions, as well.

I found if I correct the FQDN in my index-leopard-snowleopard.merged-1.sucatalog file and use the defaults write CLI command on my workstation, I can connect and download the updates. However, the next time my SUS server downloads an update, it rewrites the URL in the *.sucatalog file, removing my server's hostname. Then, if I try to connect, I get the message "Your software us up to date", which I know is not correct. (I've intentionally NOT installed any updates since 10.6.2 on my workstation.)

So, my question is, what could be causing my SUS server write the wrong URL in the *.sucatalog files ( http://mydomain.org:8088/content/downloads/etc instead of http://mysus-server.mydomain.org:8088/content/downloads/etc)? I have rechecked my config files several times, and I don't see any errors. If I can fix this one issue, then I will be one step closer to having my SUS server working properly.

Thank you.

Problem solved. It seems hostname was resolving to mydomain.org, instead of mysus-server, even though every GUI setting showed hostname set to mysus-server and the FQDN set to mysus-server.mydomain.org. I ran changeip in the CLI to correct the hostname, ran the updates again, and my *.suscatalog files then reflected the correct URLs. Not sure what would cause this, but that issue is fixed now.

i've just tried this on a dev server and it works like a charm so far. snow leopard files ARE being hosted by the server and ARE downloading properly to snow leopard clients after making a change to the softwareupdate.plist

yet to check: whether 10.4 and 10.5 clients are still working as they should.