Mavericks Caching Server Doesn't Work

raimattern wrote:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT6018?viewlocale=en_US

What we're saying is that is not happening.

It's quite clear that Apple are claiming that an iOS 7 device, when updating its own apps or software will utilise the caching service. But this is what is NOT occurring. When OSX is doing the downloading, it uses Caching, but iOS 7 does not. At least, not for me and it appears some others and maybe many others who haven't thought to check.

It cannot be anything to do with location etc since both my Mac and iOS devices are all in the same location (within feet of each other), use the same Apple ID and the same (Mac) App Store and Apple agrees they are all in the UK. It cannot be a location problem.

There appears to a problem with iOS 7. It should "just work", but sadly, it "just doesn't".

Same problem for me. The caching is working for all my OSX devices but not for my IOS 7 devices (2 iPhone and 5 iPad). I'm located in China and all my devices are conneced to the same French Apple Store account...

I have bought a Mac Mini especially for caching, due to poor internet speed connection......

Searching for help !

Can confirm your statement. I wasn't having any problems while updating my ios6 devices. Now the Cache Serice is pretty useless (with iOS devices). But I'm not sure if iOS7 is the root cause . Maybe the 10.9.1 update ?

Cache Service does work again.

iOS 7 is not responsible for the failure of Cache Service.

Server Service Logs:

Cannot lock /Library/Server/Caching/Logs/AssetCache.pid: Permission denied; is Caching Server already running?

Unable to save preferences to /Library/Server/Caching/Config/Config.plist

Since I changed with chmod the permissions of these two files, the Cache Service does work again as supposed.
Know, this is a quick & dirty solution.

PS

sudo touch AssetCache.pid

Message was edited by: raimattern

So iOS 7 devices are using the caching server for you now? Hmm I'll try that out.

Just tested with an iOS7 device again: 100 %

A point about raimattern's post of the Caching Service server panel, although it shows iOS Apps being cached, it makes no reference to whether those were downloaded by OSX (iTunes) or iOS. I do NOT have a problem with the former, only the latter. If I use iTunes to update all my iOS apps, everything goes through the Caching Server. But if I try to update an app using the actual iOS device, the download is directly to the iOS device and NOT via the server.

I can see this by watching the traffic through my router as it tells me to where the data is being downloaded, so if it's being downloaded by the Server, or my Mac or an iOS device, it is 100% clear which it is. If an iOS device is downloading updates, ALL the data goes to the iOS device and the server gets NOTHING. This is wrong. When OSX downloads updates, all the data is actually being downloaded by the Server. As I said, it's quite clear what is happening (and what is not).

The issue with permissions raises 2 questions:-

What are the permissions that were apparently wrong and what did you change them to that seemed to make it work?

Why are the permissions only a problem for iOS 7 devices trying to update whereas when OSX downloads updates the permissions are apparently NOT a problem?

Interestingly, my iOS devices are now using the caching server. I'm not sure whats changed, but the bytes used now increases when I download an app on an iOS device (tewted on iPhone 5s running 7.1b2). Running "sudo serveradmin fullstatus caching | grep CacheDetails" before and after shows an increase in bytes used for IOS Apps.

Same thing here. It looks like it's finally working correctly. iPhone 5, iOS 7.04, on the Canadian App Store.

As expected, caching doesn't seems to work under iOS 6.1.5 (iPod Touch 4th gen).

@Simon Comeau Maretl: Caching Server 2 is for iOS 7 and above. See http://www.yesdevnull.net/2013/10/os-x-mavericks-server-setting-up-caching-serve r/.

As for you others, I am now seeing that iOS 7 is caching correctly.

I can be 100% certain that this was NOT occurring but now IS. By watching the traffic through my router, previously I could see that when downloading something appropriate on my Mac, all the data streaming from the Internet was going to the server, but when doing the same thing on any iOS device, the data was going to the device and NOT the server, i.e. caching was NOT working.

Just tried again a download to my iPad and all the data went to the server, so caching is definitley now working correctly to iOS. There is no ambiguity here as I can see exactly to which device the data is being downloaded.

There's been no upgrades to iOS 7, but has there not been an update to Server.app? Whatever, I have changed nothing within my network so it must have been a problem within Apple's software somewhere about which they've been rather quiet and has now been fixed without any admission of guilt. Hey, I'm grateful it's been fixed, but the perpetrators (i.e. Apple) really should put up their hands and say sorry.

Just a heads up, for future googlers, mine didn't work due to the hardware serial number being over 12 characters because our Xserves are running VMWare ESXi hosting Mavericks Server and Windows 2012 server. ESXi gives a 18 character serial number to the OS X VMs which stops cachings erver working. The solution was to update from ESXi 5.1 to 5.5 which pruned the serials to 12 characters. If you server has had a new motehrboard and so a blank serial, you may also have the same problem as me.

Nice right up, but caching server will not cache anything eventhough everything appears to be running correctly. (GUID and public IP has been masked 😉)

sn0347:~ administrator$ tail -f /Library/Server/Caching/Logs/Debug.log

2014/05/09 13:35:18:563 Caching Server started

2014/05/09 13:35:18:567 Server GUID is 1E0B182C-A7C8-4CB2-8BF5-************

2014/05/09 13:35:18:591 Cache manager initialized, cache limit = 146.86 GB, current cache size = 0 bytes

2014/05/09 13:35:18:591 xpcListener should be running

2014/05/09 13:35:18:591 HTTPServer: Started HTTP server on port 61090

2014/05/09 13:35:18:593 Retrieving configuration

2014/05/09 13:35:18:983 Request for configuration from http://suconfig.apple.com/resource/registration/v1/config.plist succeeded

2014/05/09 13:35:19:059 Cleaning cache

2014/05/09 13:35:19:095 Cleanup succeeded.

2014/05/09 13:35:19:095 Registering for notifications

2014/05/09 13:35:19:098 Registering for service

2014/05/09 13:35:19:574 Registering with local address: 192.168.4.201; local subnet range only: 192.168.4.0-192.168.4.255

2014/05/09 13:35:19:674 Request for registration from https://lcdn-registration.apple.com/lcdn/register succeeded

2014/05/09 13:35:19:674 Got back public IP 67.***.***.*

2014/05/09 13:35:19:679 Registration succeeded. Resuming server.

2014/05/09 13:35:19:679 This server has 0 peer(s)

sn0347:~ administrator$ sudo changeip -checkhostname

Password:

Primary address = 192.168.4.201

Current HostName = sn0347.4.168.192.in-addr.arpa

DNS HostName = SN0347.4.168.192.in-addr.arpa

The names match. There is nothing to change.

dirserv:success = "success"

sn0347:~ administrator$ sudo serveradmin fullstatus caching

caching:Active = yes

caching:state = "RUNNING"

caching:CacheUsed = 0

caching:Port = 61090

caching:TotalBytesRequested = 0

caching:RestrictedMedia = no

caching:CacheLimit = 146857611967

caching:RegistrationStatus = 1

caching:CacheFree = 146857611967

caching:Peers = _empty_array

caching:TotalBytesFromPeers = 0

caching:StartupStatus = "OK"

caching:TotalBytesFromOrigin = 0

caching:CacheStatus = "OK"

caching:TotalBytesReturned = 0

caching:CacheDetails:_array_index:0:BytesUsed = 0

caching:CacheDetails:_array_index:0:LocalizedType = "Mac Software"

caching:CacheDetails:_array_index:0:MediaType = "Mac Software"

caching:CacheDetails:_array_index:0:Language = "en"

caching:CacheDetails:_array_index:1:BytesUsed = 0

caching:CacheDetails:_array_index:1:LocalizedType = "iOS Software"

caching:CacheDetails:_array_index:1:MediaType = "iOS Software"

caching:CacheDetails:_array_index:1:Language = "en"

caching:CacheDetails:_array_index:2:BytesUsed = 0

caching:CacheDetails:_array_index:2:LocalizedType = "Books"

caching:CacheDetails:_array_index:2:MediaType = "Books"

caching:CacheDetails:_array_index:2:Language = "en"

caching:CacheDetails:_array_index:3:BytesUsed = 0

caching:CacheDetails:_array_index:3:LocalizedType = "Movies"

caching:CacheDetails:_array_index:3:MediaType = "Movies"

caching:CacheDetails:_array_index:3:Language = "en"

caching:CacheDetails:_array_index:4:BytesUsed = 0

caching:CacheDetails:_array_index:4:LocalizedType = "Music"

caching:CacheDetails:_array_index:4:MediaType = "Music"

caching:CacheDetails:_array_index:4:Language = "en"

caching:CacheDetails:_array_index:5:BytesUsed = 0

caching:CacheDetails:_array_index:5:LocalizedType = "Other"

caching:CacheDetails:_array_index:5:MediaType = "Other"

caching:CacheDetails:_array_index:5:Language = "en"

macsmb wrote:

Current HostName = sn0347.4.168.192.in-addr.arpa

DNS HostName = SN0347.4.168.192.in-addr.arpa

Though the host name test passed, that's really weird DNS. The .arpa domain is not a top-level domain that I'd expect to see hosts using, except as related to reverse DNS. (The host name also passes for .local hosts, and arguably erroneously — that DNS configuration doesn't work all that well, either.)

I'd set up DNS services a little differently. Since this is in a private address space on a NAT'd network, I'd set up DNS services preferably using a domain or subdomain that you've registered or have permission to use, or use a top-level domain that's completely bogus.

Whether this DNS level set-up hits Caching Server, I don't know.

Also confirm there isn't double NAT in use.

As for the rest of what can go wrong with Caching Server, well, the rest of the thread discusses that.