Multicast, working when PXE BOOT /WDS on lab of 30 pcs.

When doing an in-place upgrade on a lab of 30 pc's, multicast not working using the same image that was working with multicasting when wds/pxe booting.

Is it possible to do an in-place upgrade using multicast? in sccm 2012 SP1, basically what i am asking is it possible to multicast without PXE booting?

anyone have any feedback?

can you post SMSTS.log, can you tall us failed in which step.

and which DP option used for Enabled scheduled multicast: Specify how Configuration Manager controls when to start deploying operating systems to destination computers. Click Enabled scheduled multicast, and then select the following options.

In the Session start delay box, specify how many minutes that Configuration Manager waits before it responds to the first deployment request. 

In the Minimum session size box, specify how many requests must be received before Configuration Manager starts to deploy the operating system. 

I set the session start delay to 5 mins, and minimum session size to 1 as i am only testing now.

If I understand things correctly, when the pc I am trying to upgrade is sitting at the login screen, and has finished staging the boot image and reboots into winpe, I should see opening multicast session from https etc? is this correct?, what happens is I see it downloading the wim and not openong up a multicast stream.

what about SMSTS.log

I'll post the smsts.log tomorrow.

In the mean time can someone answer the following question for me, so I have confirmation.

When doing an in place upgrade meaning the OS is on the machine with sccm client installed and an OSD task sequence is sent is multicasting a possibility without PXE booting?

OR

Does Multicasting only work when the machines are booting from pxe first?

Just trying to get a clear answer to this question which i can't find online or in any documentation.

The multicast client is only available in WinPE.

If you want to download using multicast but use the content in the full OS, you can try the following:

1. Add step to reboot to WinPE.

2. Add a "run command-line" step that does nothing (e.g., echo something). To this step, associate the package that you want to download using multicast.

3. Add a step to reboot back to full OS.

What will happen is that when the "run command-line" step executes, the associated content will be downloaded using multicast. The content will now be on the TS package folder. When you boot back to the full OS, that other step that requires the package will find that it is already on the local disk and will use that content instead of doing another download.

When you say multicast is only available in WinPE, you are saying Multicast is only available when the machine is PXE booted and boots into WinPE? Correct?

Below is my situation:

When I have a lab sitting at the windows logon screen and send a task sequence to that lab, it stages the boot image and reboots it WinPE, but does NOT use PXE /WDS, should I not see downloading from https:\\  etc etc once the machine is booted into WinPE? I just see downloading the wim but not from https:\\ so I assume I am not multicasting in this situation? Maybe I am asking the question wrong but basically what I am asking is multicasting only possible when PXE booting into WinPE? Attached is a screenshot of my ts.

Multicast is only available when the machine is in WinPE. It does not matter how the machine is booted.

For example, you can be in the full OS, then run a task sequence form the SCCM software center. For the task sequence to use multicast, that client has to reboot to WinPE.

In another example, if you boot from PXE, apply the OS, and then come up in the full OS, you won't be able to use multicast in the full OS.

In your task sequence, if you want to multicast the "Deep Freeze" package, you need to create a dummy command-line action that references that package. You can insert that action before the Apply OS step.

Thanks Kerwin, so in my above TS the following if run from the software center within the full OS should have the capability of multicasting?, it's weird because I never see opening multicast session when its downloading the wim.

Thanks for your reply much appreciated.

No. There is no multicast in full OS. You can only do multicast in WinPE. If you are in the full OS, you need a step to reboot to WinPE so you can multicast.

I know there is no multicast available from within the full OS, for example my above ts that I posted, if run from the software center, it reboots into winpe, and apples the OS should multicast work in regards to the screenshot of my attached TS?

Thanks again Kerwin for your patience and help.

Yes. You can start the task sequence from the full (from software center), and once the TS reboots to WinPE you will be able to multicast. If you are not seeing multicast in WinPE, please check the SMSTS log file. It should tell you why multicast is not happening.

Thanks Kerwin

Here is a link to my smsts.log, I ran an in-place upgrade from the software center and the task rebooted into winpe, but did not multicast, it default to unicast. If I boot using pxe and run the same TS multicast works without issue.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/6202692/smsts.log

Thanks for any help or advice

Update:

I have set the image to transfer via Multicast only in the properties of the image, as well as setup a multicast schedule, yet no luck with Multicast doing an in place upgrade kicking of an OSD from the software center, reboots to winpe, always defaults to unicast. I can't see anything glaringly wrong in the smsts.log either.

I think I have figured out what the problem is, and I believe this is known issue.

The problem is that the location service component of the SCCM client is not handing out the multicast locations to the TS agent. So, when the task sequence is in WinPE, it thinks that there are no multicast locations.

One way you can get around this is to use a dummy software package that is based on dynamic variables. That way, the location is not dependent on the SCCM client but is instead determined at the time of the step execution.

Thanks Kervin,

When you say create a dummy package using dynamic variables, do you mean set the multicast location statically, before the reboot into WinPE, can you give me an example of what you mean.

My second question is, Is this a known issue regarding the SCCM client not handing out multicast locations to the TS agent I can't find any kb articles?, or is it a misconfiguration on my part with the boundaries?

Thanks again to everyone on technet for all your help and guidance, you have made SCCM a lot more easier.

UPDATE: Still struggling with using dynamic variables in order to set the multicast location, if anyone can give me a hand that would be great.

Anyone?

Anyone?

We're having the same issue and I'd love to know if you solved it. Right now, if we pxe boot our wim is downloaded multicast. If we send the TS to the machines in full OS, it reboots into WinPE and does unicast regardless of our settings. We didn't have this issue with SCCM 2007, just with 2012. Thanks.

I just saw this;

Description of Cumulative Update 2 for System Center 2012 Configuration Manager Service Pack 1

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2854009?wa=wsignin1.0

specifically:
Task Sequences may ignore the Multicast Only flag when downloads are performed within the full operating system instead of Windows PE.

Would this possibly fix our issues?

Yesterday we installed CU2 on our Primary server. I thought that it would work right away but that was not the case. Today it is working after having done a few troubleshooting steps. Here's what we did to get it successfully multicasting.

1. The client on which will you be doing the in-place upgrade will need to be up to the latest client.

CU2 will create a hotfix directory under \Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\, so what you can do create a share that has the patch and tack on PATCH=<UNC path to hotfix> to your client deployment. Depending on the permissions of the share, you might see an error in your client.msi.log (can't create temp files). If that's the case, loosen the permissions on your share or copy the file locally first and run it from there. In our case we set the share permissions to allow domain computers to read/write and system read/write. The install works via the command line and client push but not while running an OSD task to install the client.

On test machine one, I updated the client via the command line

<site share>\client\ccmsetup.exe /mp:<mp fqdn> SMSSITECODE=<site code> SMSCACHESIZE=20000 FSP=<fsp fqdn> PATCH="<hotfix share>\KB2854009\configmgr2012ac-sp1-kb2854009-x64.msp"

On another I re-pushed the client.

In the SCCM console go to Administration\Site Configuration\Sites\. Select your Site and under Client Installation Settings, choose Client Push Installation. Under installation Properties add the PATCH= stuff from above. Now you should be able to push the update to clients.

Your clients should now show version 5.00.7804.1300

2. You may need to reinstall WDS on your server that is doing the multicast.

Since we have another DP that serves up our packages, we were getting MCS key mismatch errors when trying to serve up the image. Using wdsutil we noticed that our stream was never getting created. In the end we updated the client on this machine, removing PXE/Multicast and rebooted. We then re-added PXE/Multicast to our DP (which installed WDS) and then we were able to multicast.

Just make sure if you had changed any registry settings for WDS like the port range (since the console doesn't seem to do this) that you will need to change them and restart WDS.

In short CU2 did fix our issue

Thanks Elemental-33. After applying the patch, updating the clients, and removing/reinstalling PXE and Multicast all is well here too.

Hello,

I'm experiencing the same issue but the CU2 didn't resolve it.
I did apply the patch to all clients, removed/reinstalled WDS and multicast but the issue still persist and crash.

Here the report summary:

Command line for extension .exe is "%1" %*
Set command line: "OSDApplyOS.exe" /image:PS10002A,1 "/config:PS100013,unattend.xml" /runfromnet:False
Found run from net option: 0
Not a data image
ApplyOSRetry:
TSLaunchMode: SMS
OSDUseAlreadyDeployedImage: FALSE
'C:\' not a removable drive
Searching for next available volume:
  Volume S:\ size is 350MB and less than 750MB
  Volume C:\ is a valid target.
Found volume C:Windows target partition is 0-2, driver letter is C:Verifying boot volume isNTFS.
Succeeded loading resource DLL 'X:\sms\bin\x64\1033\TSRES.DLL'
The machine does not have a local client cache.
ResolveSource flags: 0x00000001
SMSTSPersistContent: . The content for package PS10002A will be persisted
DownloadOnDemand flag is true. Attempting to download content locally for Package PS10002A..

This application has requested the Runtime to terminate it in an unusual way.
lease contact the application's support team for more information.