Applications Manager Devices Not Updating

[jlester]

Howdy friends!

We've been working on getting cache drives setup in Azure so that we can still use Habitat Apps Manager for all of our devices. I believe I have the Azure share configured properly, as I'm seeing cache files & Habitat folders in the share where I'd expect them.

Most all devices in our test client are showing a green check next to Current now, but they don't appear to be current. (The 0319 device has been offline all of 2024, so not worried about that one.) The apps that aren't enabled for the client have not been kept up-to-date (see first screenshot). The one app that we did enable for this client (7-zip) did not get installed on computers that are missing it (SRV-01 and NADINE). I got this setup several weeks ago and let it sit for a while, so I feel like it should be humming along at this point. Any ideas where we can look to troubleshoot?

Thank you so much for any advice!!

Screenshot 2024-03-19 093049.png (52.75 KiB) Viewed 216 times

Screenshot 2024-03-19 093036.png (37.15 KiB) Viewed 216 times

Screenshot 2024-03-19 094109.png (30.31 KiB) Viewed 216 times

Screenshot 2024-03-19 094117.png (20.2 KiB) Viewed 216 times

Screenshot 2024-03-19 094137.png (56.24 KiB) Viewed 216 times

Screenshot 2024-03-19 094735.png (92.05 KiB) Viewed 216 times

[Cubert]

You should be seeing script schedule against agents in question sending update commands to script. This should cause agent to query Cache and call for package updates.

If you do not see this over a 24 hour period. We should check the Habitat Applications manager logs in the Habitat Log manager for clues.
Can you see if logs are reporting errors?

[jlester]

Oh of course! Sorry, this didn't need to be a post - I should've started there!!

Script logs clearly indicated I needed chocolatey-core.extension and chocolatey-compatibility.extension. Once I enabled those, updated repo cache, and forced a couple updates, it installed everything A-OK. I'll let the other devices run automatically & check on 'em tomorrow.

But that seemed to solve our issue! Thank you for your help as always!!

[Cubert]

Wow, That was just to easy!

[Cubert]

Also, If you ever have time, You may post how you manage cache directories with Microsoft and your experience with it since. I would bet some other engineer out there may be in a position that this would become handy information.

Some of our newer plugins (C4A 3.6 and APM) now allow you to manage sources both as local SMB caches and URL based repositories. We provide a document, a step by step guide on how to setup a Chocolatey proxy for free or nearly free where your entire MSP could offer up a path to the Chocolatey public repository.

Its nearly free if you follow our guide and run the proxy in the cloud off a AWS or Digital Ocean server. Digital Ocean has a $7 a month Ubuntu box that runs Docker that will allow you to install run the proxy software for free. So you pay $& a month for the server and bandwidth to supply a cache of any package requested from public repo. Very awesome stuff!!

[jlester]

Heyo, actually it looks like we still might be having a prob updating apps :/

Any apps that we've enabled for a client do seem to stay updated, and they seem to roll out to devices that don't have the software. So that's fantastic, and a huge step forward for us, and very awesome!!

But apps that we don't have enabled for a client don't seem to be updating still. When I look at script logs, the only software that's mentioned in the logs are software that we've enabled for a given client.

Looking at Adobe Reader, for example. We have that listed in our overall catalog, but we don't want to roll out Reader to all devices. We just want to keep it updated on any device that already has it. It looks like it's still running a super old version on CT-3410, and none of the script logs seem to mention Adobe at all. They do mention 7-zip, notepad++, putty, and the others that we have specifically enabled for this client.

Screenshot 2024-04-25 151824.png (273.69 KiB) Viewed 113 times

Interestingly, though, if I look at CT-JAKE, Adobe Reader isn't listed in the list of Managed Applications at all. But it is in the list of Installed Software. And I did just confirm I do have Reader 2021 installed on this computer.

Screenshot 2024-04-25 152105.png (65.88 KiB) Viewed 113 times

Is that expected behavior? Are we able to use this plugin to keep existing apps up-to-date, regardless of if we want to deploy them to all devices?

Also, I love the idea of rolling out a proxy for all of our clients. I'll definitely be looking into that! I'm not super evangelistic about Azure for this purpose. Many popular ISPs seem to be blocking port 445 lately - particularly Starlink and AT&T, based on the little bit of testing we've done - and 445 is required with the way we're utilizing Azure. So we'll probably look at rolling out a proxy, per those instructions you linked. Is that proxy ability coming to Habitat App Manager?

Thank you, as always, and forever, for everything that you do for this community!!

(edited to put screenshots in their correct spots inline)

[Cubert]

Good Post!

But apps that we don't have enabled for a client don't seem to be updating still. When I look at script logs, the only software that's mentioned in the logs are software that we've enabled for a given client.

In Habitat, This is the expected behavior.

Reason:
When Habitat manages updates of packages it does it one by one and does not just call "choco update all -y". It gets a list of approved apps from the client and loops through those apps, updating each app by name. This allows the function to capture outputs from each call to determine if errors exit for a particular package.


Habitat's Application Manager was derived from the Chocolatey 3.0 plugin back when Habitat was first conceived. Its processes and functions are based on that framework and is a bit rigid. We made big strides with Package Management in general since the original release Chocolatey 1.0. Today we are currently servicing Chocolatey For Automate 3.6 and our latest plugin to hit the stage, Automate Package Manager, which takes our Chocolatey framework and applies it also to Homebrew (Mac) and Apt-get (Debian/Ubuntu Linux), YUM (RedHat, CentOS, Rocky Linux) and Zypper (SUSE Enterprise, OpenSUSE Linux). We also have introduced Update and Install policies along with a more robust scheduling service. We also greatly improved the delivery of the automated services by moving most of the automation out of ISYNC and in to Group management. This means you as the MSP have more control over when and how often any automation takes place in your environment. Essentially allowing you to "tune" the plugin to your environment.

Here is a video demo of Automate Package Manager. Youtube Video


As for your second question:

CT-JAKE, Adobe Reader isn't listed in the list of Managed Applications at all. But it is in the list of Installed Software.

Any software that shows up in Software List comes from the Windows (Installed Apps) list and not from Chocolatey scans. Only software installed by Chocolatey can be directly managed by Chocolatey. Chocolatey does not go looking for installed apps on windows and then associates some repo package as its equal. Chocolatey must install a package to be able to maintain that package.

In CT-Jake case, to get Chocolatey to manage the Adobe, add Adobe to the approved apps. It will install it's Adobe reader package. This may cause there to be 2 Adobe versions installed, Adobe may see previous version and replace it, or may not. If it does not, you will need to manually remove app from Windows, or not.... (up to you).