All Manifests give same "stable" catalog

[EB]

I have Simina running on Google AppEngine. No matter what I do, clients keep getting the "stable" catalog. Even when set to Unstable simiantrack, the track listed in UUID line is "stable" (even though Unstable is listed in the line above in the host config on Simian). When I browse to mysite.appspot.com/manifests/Unstable, The XML has "stable" in the catalog. In fact, when I do mysite.appspot.com/manifests/ANYTHING, the XML has "stable" in the catalog. Is there a setting I am missing?

[Justin McWilliams]

I believe manifest names are case-sensitive.   Can you confirm you see the unstable catalog when navigating to mysite.appspot.com/manifests/unstable (vs Unstable)?  Can you confirm clients are also using an all-lowercased name?

On Wed, Mar 16, 2016 at 9:23 AM, EB <ethan...@gmail.com> wrote:

I have Simina running on Google AppEngine. No matter what I do, clients keep getting the "stable" catalog. Even when set to Unstable simiantrack, the track listed in UUID line is "stable" (even though Unstable is listed in the line above in the host config on Simian). When I browse to mysite.appspot.com/manifests/Unstable, The XML has "stable" in the catalog. In fact, when I do mysite.appspot.com/manifests/ANYTHING, the XML has "stable" in the catalog. Is there a setting I am missing?

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[EB]

I can confirm that I see the catalog "stable" for ANYTHING I enter in the url mysite.appspot.com/manifests/ANYTHINGATALLHERE

<plist version="1.0">

<dict>

<key>catalogs</key>

<array>

<string>stable</string>

<string>apple_update_metadata</string>

</array>

</dict>

</plist>

[Justin McWilliams]

Sorry, that's the URL which clients hit (and provide more than a manifest name).

To test with your browser, load this: foo.appspot.com/admin/manifest/testing

To test what your client see's, you'll need something like this (as clients retrieve manifests based on their client ID, which contains a track variable): foo.appspot.com/manifests/track=unstable

[EB]

Yes, the admin links work just fine, with unstable in the XML.

[EB]

when I do a managedsoftwareupdate -vvv though it says

Using manifest: Unstable

....other items...

Getting catalog stable

[Justin McWilliams]

See the casing?  I'm guessing you'll see a ManifestNotFoundError error on the server logs (https://console.cloud.google.com/logs).

Can you change the simiantrack from "Unstable" to "unstable" in /etc/simian/settings.cfg?  Then run "sudo simianfacter" to verify it's outputting what you'd expect.

[EB]

I see no such error in the logs, but changing the setting DID make it go to the right catalog...  For some reason, the uppercase U was necessary before (or so I thought), since eI had some items crashing without that, but maybe that was a red herring and not really the issue before.

Will this allow additional packages to show up in the App Store in Updates? Really just trying to get a way to show and push Apple Updates to Macs (I am new to Simian, obviously).

[Justin McWilliams]

Yes, Simian (built atop the Munki client) will allow you to manage your own software/update deployments along with Apple-provided updates.

If all you care about is Apple App Store updates, you should probably have a look at the lighter weight solution, Reposado: https://github.com/wdas/reposado

It'd also be worth reading about Munki, to better understand the feature difference Simian provides: https://github.com/munki/munki

[EB]

I do also have custom packages I am building and looking to deploy through it. I still don't see any updates available to that client that is now in the "unstable" track. Wiki was rather uninformative about that part.

[Justin McWilliams]

So the "unstable" manifest (XML/plist viewed directly via browser) shows packages, but the client isn't downloading, prompting, or otherwise installing them?  managedsoftwareupdate -vvv is your friend in this case; does it detect them, but bypass for some reason?

[EB]

Maybe I am not undressing *how* it is supposed to work. I need to specify every apple update in the manifest? I'd like *all* apple updates in "unstable" catalog to be pushed/pulled to/from a client

[Justin McWilliams]

All Apple Updates should be present in the unstable catalog by default, but it's possible given this is a fresh instance (and presumably using free quota) it may take a couple of days to initially sync all catalogs.

To verify, in the web UI, go to the Apple Updates -> Catalog Admin page (/admin/applesus), ensure you have updates in the "unstable" catalog (boxes on right are enabled), then either way several hours or under "Regenerate Catalogs" click unstable and the regenerate button.

[EB]

The boxes are all checked..they have been checked for about 5 days.I've done several regenerates in the 5 days. What exactly does pending mean? I can enable the $300 60-day free trial. If this works, I plan on paying for it.

[Justin McWilliams]

Clicking "pending" for a given package in the list will show you which clients have acknowledged the package needs to be installed, but have yet installed it.

Does managedsoftwareupdate -vvv show any indication of Apple softwareupdate being run?  Does "sudo softwareupdate -l" list any available updates / is it possible your client is fully updated?

[EB]

It says no new software updates available. It is possible that there is nothing new..but is that *really* possible, given that its on unstable?

[Justin McWilliams]

**shrug**, it really depends what OS X version you running, and when you last installed updates.

also, by default, Simian will silently auto-install Apple updates which don't require logout/reboot, so it's possible anything pending was already installed;  you should be able to confirm this by viewing the specific client in question in the web UI.

[EB]

The Web UI says nothing was installed on it and 0 found.

[EB]

Well, I found a system that is out of date. When it searches in app store, it shows an update available. I registered it with Simian, but Apple Software Updates section for the system says 0 found! Also, it looks like the summary section has some cache and doesn't show the system yet, yet if I go to client reports section, it does show...Is that normal behavior?

On Wednesday, March 16, 2016 at 12:47:41 PM UTC-4, Justin McWilliams wrote:

[Justin McWilliams]

On Thu, Mar 17, 2016 at 3:03 PM, EB <ethan...@gmail.com> wrote:

Well, I found a system that is out of date. When it searches in app store, it shows an update available. I registered it with Simian,

 

but Apple Software Updates section for the system says 0 found!

In the Munki app, or the Simian web UI?  The web UI will only show what has already been installed (or, pending to be installed, but not in the Apple section).

 

Also, it looks like the summary section has some cache and doesn't show the system yet, yet if I go to client reports section, it does show...Is that normal behavior?

Yes, the summary is only updated every 4 hours: https://github.com/google/simian/blob/master/src/simian/mac/cron.yaml#L48

If you search for the client (by hostname, owner, serial, etc.) then you can view it's report directly.

[EB]

This is in the simian web UI. I would want to see which apple updates were not installed so I could force them on the box from apple.