SOLUS3 - location of extracted files

[msi]

I recently migrated the school's simsroot folder off the SIMS server and onto a SAN, with another server hosting the DFS point.

 

S:\ drive is now mapped to \\domain.local\root\sims ... I've triple-checked users' S: drives are pointing here.

 

SOLUS3 update works*, as I understand it doesn't use S:\SIMS\Setups files but rather a series of .pkg files deployed directly to the server.

 

However, SOLUS3 doesn't appear to be extracting the setup files (i.e. for manual install) to the correct new location.

 

a) I've changed the "extract to" location as necessary

 

Under Settings > SOLUS3 > Updates > Extract to folder, I have:

\\domain.local\root\sims\sims\setups (yes, I should change that to something more sensible, e.g. \\domain.local\root\simsroot\sims\setups...)

 

and the "After Deployment" boxes are ticked like so:

 

 

 

b) I've not moved anything else. Irrelevant... but Document Server and SIMS SQL instance is on the same server as before (I only say this because the school's SIMS support team had kittens and couldn't get their heads around this basic fact)

 

c) Irrelevant, but... Under Settings > SOLUS3 > SOLUS > Update repository, I have:

\\domain.local\root\sims\SOLUSUpdates

 

So in summary, I'm seeing recent .pkg files in the new location for S:\SOLUSUpdates, but no recently extracted executables in S:\SIMS\Setups

 

Additional info

After I moved the simsroot folder and after the SIMS support team ran the Autumn upgrade, the folder D:\data\simsroot\Sims\Setups automagically re-appeared. Support team swear blind they've no idea why given the above. I certainly didn't recreate it. I'm assuming SOLUS3 did. Timestamp suggests it happened when the support team ran SOLUS3 upgrade. Frustratingly, the only files in this folder are these:

 

 

 

Any ideas?

 

*I'm lying, SOLUS3 currently doesn't work but that's a different issue which I'm 99% sure is unrelated, see my other post shortly... either way, I need to see the most recent setup files and I'm not seeing them!

Edited December 19, 2016 by msi

[Steve21]

Well two things, as you got it ticked as after deployment it's not set to extract until it has deployed (and if it's not working I don't see why it would extract yet).

 

However if you're put the "root" as you call it on a random SAN share etc you're more likely going to have issues with permissions. Solus runs as a system account normally on the SIMs/Solus server, so unless you've given it explicit permissions to said dfs/root folder it wouldn't be able to write back to it. Any reason you're doing this? Just seems to be confusing things for the sake of it.

 

Steve

[msi]

Thanks Steve

 

1/ I previously had it set to extract after download, the sims team advised that they always have it set to extract after deployment and insisted I do this. I'll test further here.

 

2/ Re permissions, I had assumed SOLUS3 ran under the user account it was launched on, OR at the very least it wouldn't be a problem if running under a system account on a member server and "domain computers" was set with write permissions. Perhaps I assumed wrongly!

 

Thanks

[Steve21]

Thanks Steve

 

1/ I previously had it set to extract after download, the sims team advised that they always have it set to extract after deployment and insisted I do this. I'll test further here.

 

2/ Re permissions, I had assumed SOLUS3 ran under the user account it was launched on, OR at the very least it wouldn't be a problem if running under a system account on a member server and "domain computers" was set with write permissions. Perhaps I assumed wrongly!

 

Thanks

 

1) There's a bug with it when it's set to do after deployment currently that third line are investigating, but for what you're asking it shouldn't matter either way "if" you're deploying successfully, but from your "it's not working" it might.

 

2) You don't run Solus "service" as the launching user, You run the UI for the service. The service runs whether or not a user is logged on, and thus normally is installed by default as system (The same user it uses for the SQL access). Share wise/permissions, have you tried it locally on the SIMs server? Just to test to see if it's a bigger issue or just something with the config you're trying to do (Still not sure the purpose of this but oh well). If it works locally extraction it's gonna be permission wise.

 

Steve

[msi]

 

... You don't run Solus "service" as the launching user, You run the UI for the service.

 

Steve

 

I thought this may be the case. Contrary to what I said before, I obviously hadn't set this up properly.

 

Just spent the last hour with Process Monitor, and yes I'm getting access denied messages when trying to write to the domain file share. The requesting user is NTAUTHORITY\system

 

Interestingly, the UI which runs under the user context is responsible for downloading files to the location stored in Settings > SOLUS3 > SOLUS (i.e. the "update repository"). That's why it wasn't failing to actually run upgrades on remote machines...

 

For the benefit of anyone else reading this in the future, here's what I did.

 

Apply the following permission on the file share itself

 

EITHER: "Authenticated Users":FULL (a server counts as an authenticated user)

OR: "SERVERNAME$":FULL

 

Now when I re-run the download, the extraction process actually works...

 

Cheers

Edited December 19, 2016 by msi

[Steve21]

Interestingly, the UI which runs under the user context is responsible for downloading files to the location stored in Settings > SOLUS3 > SOLUS (i.e. the "update repository"). That's why it wasn't failing to actually run upgrades on remote machines...

 

On a side note, that's only the case if you manually do the downloads. If it's an auto-deployment/download one it's still on system just to confuse things

 

But at least it's all working now!

 

Steve