OS X Server Mountain Lion: Place of Software Update Files on HDD?

Software update storage

Software updates are stored in the /Library/Server/Software Update/Data/ folder and can easily take a large amount of disk space over time and cause problems with system resources. In a production environment, it is important to prevent the system disk from becoming full and causing instability.

To eliminate the possibility of software updates filling a volume, system administrators normally limit the type of data being stored on the startup volume and place data that could grow substantially in size on other volumes. For example, you could use a RAID volume to store software updates.

ok, it's a good ID, but how can I modify it?

In ML, there's a lot of use of command serveradmin.

First, sitch the SWUS off. Then, check what is the default path

sudo serveradmin fullstatus swupdate

then set a new path

sudo serveradmin settings swupdate:updatesDocRoot = "/Volumes/Data/SWUS/"

I just tried this on a server running 10.9. As soon as I turn the software update service on again the path reverts back to `/Library/Server/Software Update/Data/`. Any ideas on how to correct this?

viellencerts wrote:

I just tried this on a server running 10.9. As soon as I turn the software update service on again the path reverts back to `/Library/Server/Software Update/Data/`. Any ideas on how to correct this?

Use Server.app and tell it where you want the service data. Server.app, connect to the server if necessary, select the server at the top left, select Settings over to the right, and then select Service Data, and tell Server.app where you want the data.

I know this is an old post, but I wanted to reply here for others who are still searching for this obscure information. The serveradmin command to redirect the updates works on Mavericks Server, but you have to include the Data folder, or the setting will continue to show the default /Library/Server location. Thus:

sudo serveradmin settings swupdate:updatesDocRoot = "/Volumes/Data/SWUS/Data"

will return the new path. ... At least that's how it worked for me. Until I added the Data folder at the end of the command, I got the same results as MrHoffman, that is, the default path.

If you use Server.app to change the volume for the service data storage, it will move everything out of /Library/Server to the new location -- in other words, all the services, not just Software Update.

I tried the methods above, none of them worked for me. After entering:

sudo serveradmin settings swupdate:updatesDocRoot = "/mnt/OMV/SoftwareUpdate/Data";

The command would always return:

swupdate:updatesDocRoot = "/Library/Server/Software Update/Data/"

As a work around I am doing the following:

sudo mkdir -p /mnt/OMV/SoftwareUpdate/Data;

sudo mv /Library/Server/Software\ Update/Data/* /mnt/OMV/SoftwareUpdate/Data;

sudo rm -r /Library/Server/Software\ Update/Data/;

sudo ln -s /mnt/OMV/SoftwareUpdate/Data/ /Library/Server/Software\ Update/Data;

The commands above do the following:

• Creates the data data folder, if it does not exist.
• Move any downloaded updates and content to your desired location.
• Removes the default data folder.
• Creates a symbolic link in the default data location that points to your data folder.

It's not as clean but it should work.

Question: Did you create your target (relocated) "Software Update" folder before trying to run the swupdate:updatesDocRoot command?
And did you make sure that the permissions on the new folder match those on the default location? The owner and group should both be:

_softwareupdate

Eg:

drwxrwxr-x 6 _softwareupdate _softwareupdate 204 Dec 24 12:37 Software Update

When the server creates the new software update subfolders, all of them will have _softwareupdate as owner and group as well.

At least on Mavericks Server.

Finally, perhaps the OS only lets you move the location to another volume but not another point on the startup volume. That is just speculation on my part.

"If you use Server.app to change the volume for the service data storage, it will move everything out of /Library/Server to the new location -- in other words, all the services, not just Software Update."

Do you know if this is correct for the netinstall service as well, since by default net installs are located in /Library/NetBoot as opposed to /Library/Server ?

Id like my netinstall to be served from my internal SSD, and the software updates to be served from my larger external drive