WSUS Wont download updates

Over the years of working with WSUS I have had some clients that just refuse to download and install updates. Eventually manually clearing out the BITS download cache and trying to resync they will eventually work. So I made a little script to do that for me. net stop wuauserv net stop bits REG DELETE "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate\Auto Update" /v NextDetectionTime /f del %windir%\SoftwareDistribution\*.* /q/s net start bits net start wuauserv wuauclt /detectnow

New Core Switches

I got some new toys at work and am in the process of getting the first pair installed. We still need to figure out how to free some rack space to place the second pair at our other location. Here is a photo of the first pair of 6506Es we got installed. There is one more vertical cable organizer to install on the left side but the install went pretty smooth. Considering we had to pull out two 23" racks and install the two 19" racks without turning some equipment off. Thats not something I want to do every week.

Here are the specs of the four switches we got:
Cisco Catalyst 6506E
SUP-720-3B
WS-X6748-GE-TX + DFC
WS-CAC-2500W
WS-CAC-2500W

Throttle WSUS durring business hours

Deploying a WSUS server in a corporate network is pretty standard practice but it can negatively impact users when the PCs have to download updates from a remote WSUS server over a WAN connection.

The problem is that WSUS does not throttle the amount of bandwidth available to download the updates it will just use as much of your WAN circuit as possible while the PCs download the required updates.

One solution would be to enable throttling of the WSUS traffic on your routers during business hours. This can be complex to setup if it’s even supported by your routers. An easier option is to enable IIS throttling on your WSUS site in IIS during business hours and disable IIS throttling after closing.

To do this you need to use the script adsutil.vbs in "C:\Inetpub\AdminScripts\" and create a scheduled task to enable/disable the throttle.

1. You need to find the site identifier for your WSUS Administration site. Open the IIS Manager click on "Web Sites". Look at the "Identifier" column of your WSUS Administration site. This is your sites id.

2. Create a new scheduled task to enable the throttle. Enter the site id for your WSUS Administration site from step 1. Pick a time when you want to start the throttle. I picked 6:00AM because I want to make sure it’s enabled before anyone shows up to work. The property to enable the throttle is "MaxBandwidth" and is in bps. If you want to limit WSUS to 512K you must enter "524288" (512 * 1024) the IIS Manager will list this in Kbps.
C:\WINDOWS\system32\cscript.exe "C:\Inetpub\AdminScripts\adsutil.vbs" SET /w3svc/<siteid>/MaxBandwidth 524288

3. Create a second task to disable the throttle. To disable the throttle we set the value to its max not to 0. I scheduled this task to run at 8:00PM after everyone has left.
C:\WINDOWS\system32\cscript.exe "C:\Inetpub\AdminScripts\adsutil.vbs" SET /w3svc/<siteid>/MaxBandwidth 4294967295

In the end you have two scheduled task that look somewhat like this. One that will enable throttling on your WSUS site to prevent it from saturating your WAN during the day and a second to disable it so the PCs can get their updates as fast as possible in the evening.

SCVMM: Mount Shared ISO

I have been using SCVMM R2 for a while but one thing I never got working correctly is the ability to mount an ISO directly from the library share rather than copy the ISO to the VM. There are plenty of guides to help you get that setup. Like here:
http://blogs.technet.com/b/dutchpts/archive/2009/02/09/hyper-v-and-scvmm-2008-mounting-iso-s-from-a-network-share.aspx?wa=wsignin1.0

It never worked for me until I found this other little blog entry by Timothy. http://www.avianwaves.com/Blog/default.aspx?id=187&t=SCVMM-Mounting-Shared-ISOs-From-The-Lib

Basically if your SCVMM library is on the same server as the Hyper-V host you just need to add the NT AUTHORITY\Network Service user account to both your library Share and NTFS permissions.

iPad

So I got an Apple iPad Tablet (32GB, Wi-Fi) from work and have been playing with it. Its a pretty neat toy. I have been looking around for apps and have found a few that I like so far.

Kindle
iBooks
ABC Player
Epicurious
Wikipanion
Pandora
Dungeon Hunter HD
Marvel
Netfilx
SSH Terminal
Nightstand
RDesktop
Calculator XL

I loaded the sample of Understanding the Linux Kernel, Third Edition and tried reading a few chapters. It was actually pretty easy on the eyes after lowering the brightness and tilting the screen a little so the lcd was not shining directly into my eyes. It’s still not even close to as easy to read as a kindle but makes a great alternative multiuse device.

Droid X

We recently got new phones for work and most of us got Android based phones either the Droid 2 or the Droid X. I opted for a Droid X due to the larger screen size and HD camera. The slide out keyboard was tempting but I had a Blackberry Storm so am accustomed to the on screen keyboard already.

Overall I am very happy with the phone. I have found a few quirky issues that bug me a little. Like when you search your corporate directory and click on the contacts phone number to place the call it does nothing until you use the "back" button to exit the corporate search at that point the phone makes the call. Not a huge problem just annoying.

I was extremely worried about dropping or scratching the phone so went ahead and got some accessories to protect the phone. First was the Carbon fiber case from Verizon. While I was waiting for that to arrive I was also looking for screen protectors. I ended up getting the ZAGG invisibleSHIELD for Motorola Droid X (Screen). Its not the easiest screen protector to put on but it does a great job once you finally get it on.

OpenNOP Open Source Network Accelerator

So I have been sporadically working on my pet project OpenNOP which stands for (Open source Network Optimization Platform). Several months ago I re-branded it from its former name of PacketSqueezer as it was to very similar to another open source project that I had been testing called TrafficSqueezer.

Originally I was using PacketSqueezer as an example on how similar results could be achieved without having to write an entire custom kernel. Something I really didn't like was having to compile a custom kernel to use TrafficSqueezer. Some of us just want to install and go.

I am really not a programmer so its mostly just me fumbling around. So if you are a programmer with some networking skills please spare a few cycles and check out the code. Its all uploaded at http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/opennop. I could use the code review and if you want to work on this just let me know. I would love to see it mature and become the open source alternative to "insert expensive commercial WAN acceleration solution here".