Can not get Lion clients to access Lion SUS

Just an update on some more of my twiddlings. I now have my machines talking to the software update server without generating errors. I used the terminal command:

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate CatalogURLhttp://MiniServer.local:8088/index-lion-snowleopard-leopard.merged-1.sucatalog

Software update on the client, which now shows the (miniserver.local) in its title bar, takes only about 1s to come back with no updates available. The only problem is that I know there are updates waiting.

Dear DeeBeeMac

Unfortunately, no. In the end it all appeared to run OK. When I would run Software Update on a client pointed at my server it would show the server as the source (in the title bar). I would not get any errors in the Software Update Server error log, and the client would appear to be accessing the catalog at the URL you specified under the access log. The only problem was that it simply would not detect any updates. I suspect that there are some corrupted permissions somewhere, since everytime I repair permissions, some of the software update folders are coming back with the wrong permissions. I fix them and next time software update runs they are unfixed again. I do not know why you are still getting errors with the URL you are using - I presume you are using Lion as your server - there are different URLs for 10.5, 6 and 7? I have spent days on this and have now given up. Several commentators have said that this service is really brittle. It only took me ten minutes to set this up under 10.4 on an XServer, so I don't think it is me. I could suggest lots of things for you to try, but I fear I would waste your time, since nothing worked for me. If you do manage to get your service working, please post back with any tips.

Thanks and regards, BB

Just an update on my SUS problems. Well I fixed it - only took three days of faffing about. I did so many things to it, that I am unsure of what actually pushed it over the line. However, I think my last actions were key. I followed the procedure set out in the apple knowlege-base article: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4069 and then I configured the software update server to download all new updates and both copy and enable said updates. Originally, I'd attempted to avoid doing this, and had been picking and choosing updates manually, as otherwise, it would download at lot of stuff I didn't want/need, and my interweb connection comes via a piece of wet string. I think this was the cause of the problem as I read a post where someone solved their problems doing the above. Five days on I am still downloading stuff from the Apple servers, but at least my clients are now picking up updates. So my advice to anyone encountering difficulties with updates or possibly a fritzed update server - follow the knowledge-base article above, configure the Software Update Server as per my settings, sit back and wait. This procedure will cause everything to download again - so you'll burn through a lot of download. I know 10-20 GB is a mere bagatelle to folks in Western countries, but here in South Africa a 1GB per month plan is considered ostentatious and my download speed is 1Mb/s - it is ADSL, but not as most folks know it.

I am running a Lion server and all my clients are Lion, so I have configured my clients to look for the SUS catalog using the following command line at the Terminal (enter it as a single line);

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate CatalogURL http://miniserver.local:8088/index-lion-snowleopard-leopard.merged-1.sucatalog

Note miniserver.local is the name of my server (edit to suit yours) and 8088 is the default port which is set by the Software Update Server. This catalogURL is different for 10.5, 10.6 and 10.7 clients - twould be nice if Apple standardised it.

Regards, BB