DSC Pull Server

This is something  you will need for 100% in your environment. Even if someone will told you that you can easily PUSH the configurations when you need and you should not be bothered… ask them very simple question: “How you are going to deliver all the modules needed for the configuration to the nodes?”.

manualwork

Manually?

Wow, then just do manually all the rest! We are doing automation!

automated

Pull server will allow the node to download all it may need to become “DSC ready”.

It all looks very easy, as you can deploy pull server with the DSC itself, but please ensure the following:

  1. Node is set as HTTPS. This will ensure that you data is transferred securely.
  2. You have “proper” data provider in your “web.config”
    The service URL changed after DSC Resource Kit Wave 9.“Interop error…”
    Current scenarios require edit of database path in web.config: C:\inetpub\wwwroot\PSDSCPullServer\web.config
    find these two lines:
    <add key=”dbprovider” value=”ESENT” />
    <add key=”dbconnectionstr” value=”C:\Program Files\WindowsPowerShell\DscService\Devices.edb” />
    replace with:
    <add key=”dbprovider” value=”System.Data.OleDb” />
    <add key=”dbconnectionstr” value=”Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data Source=C:\Program Files\WindowsPowerShell\DscService\Devices.mdb;”/>This has helped me to avoid lots of problems with PULL server.  The major are: ESENT Logs and Parallel UpdatesSo if you have had problems as below – resolution is above 🙂

Errors:

The attempt to get the action from server
http://dsc-001///PSDSCPullServer.svc/Nodes(AgentId='C07CBBB90')/GetDscAction failed
because pullserver is not available or there is no  registered node with AgentId C07CBBB90
on the server.
    + CategoryInfo          : ResourceUnavailable: (root/Microsoft/...gurationManager:String) [], CimException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : WebDownloadManagerGetActionNodeConfigurationNotFound,Microsoft.PowerShell.DesiredStateCo
   nfiguration.Commands.GetDscActionCommand
    + PSComputerName        : Server-01
I have noticed that C:\Program Files\WindowsPowerShell\DscService folder is around 60Gb in size. When I have checked I have found that all of this is edbXXXXX.log (edb7DB4D.log) files. I have around 500K of those logs.