Software Update will not start

[pedz]

Every time I hit "Start Service" to start the Software Update Service in the Server Admin, I get this in the console:

Jan 25 17:04:12 EaseServer SystemStarter[282]: Could not create IPC bootstrap port: com.apple.SystemStarter

Any clues?

This is on a freshly installed Quad G5, 1.5G ram, 10.4.4. I have DNS, DHCP, and Open Directory running as a master. Nothing else is turned on yet.

(Note that AFP is not on yet -- no particular reason ... could that be part of the problem?)

[ElDiabloConCaca]

Have you tried turning on AFP and then starting the service?

[pedz]

Yes, I tried that. I just hit the Start for AFP. It started. I didn't configure anything. The Update Server still isn't happy.

I just installed the whole thing and was walking through the initial set up. I'm going to start back over from scratch. I'm thinking -- maybe -- that I need to start the service before I select which images to serve. Its a long shot...

[Go3iverson]

Give Software Update some time. What its doing in the background is checking its cache files against the Apple software updates available. It may crash a few times, I've seen, but usually it kicks in with a plethora of downloads. View the activity on your server. Check your active processes using top or ps -aux. Also take a look at network traffic.

It may actually be attempting to grab 80 some odd packages at once.

[pedz]

Thanks.

For various reasons, I started back over on my install. When I got to the point of starting the software update, I just clicked on it in Server Admin. The little black wheel thing started spinning. I noticed my T1 going full tilt and then saw a process getting 4% of the cpu time so I just went to bed and left it running. It eventually finished and all is happy now.

[Go3iverson]

Originally Posted by pedz

Thanks.

For various reasons, I started back over on my install. When I got to the point of starting the software update, I just clicked on it in Server Admin. The little black wheel thing started spinning. I noticed my T1 going full tilt and then saw a process getting 4% of the cpu time so I just went to bed and left it running. It eventually finished and all is happy now.

Cool. I've seen that happen a few times on my own server deployments, so its not completely unusual, though slightly disheartening and unnerving. AFP is really unrelated to this service, you publish this out using MCX settings in Open Directory.

Glad to hear your up and running though!

[sourcehound]

Originally Posted by Go3iverson

Cool. I've seen that happen a few times on my own server deployments, so its not completely unusual, though slightly disheartening and unnerving. AFP is really unrelated to this service, you publish this out using MCX settings in Open Directory.

Glad to hear your up and running though!

There's also a command-line tweak to get an unmanaged Mac to use a Software Update Server process. My application, Mac HelpMate, has a GUI for making this quite the easy task!

[Go3iverson]

Originally Posted by sourcehound

There's also a command-line tweak to get an unmanaged Mac to use a Software Update Server process. My application, Mac HelpMate, has a GUI for making this quite the easy task!

Sure, but his issue was the initial installation of the Software Update Server service, when the service tends to wildly download everything it can find. More times than not, the service will report errors and incorrectly display errors. The service is actually just blinding itself with data.