Deploying a New Configuration Manager Secondary Site
I’ve recently been deploying a few new Secondary Sites for our Configuration Manager environment at work, so I decided to make a quick walkthrough on how to deploy a new Secondary Site on Windows Server. I’m posting it here as well, in case anyone else can use it for their benefit.
Steps to Deploy a New Secondary Site
- Grant new server account access to AD Systems Management container (Full Control)
- Add new server account to SMS_SiteToSiteConnection_SITECODE on Primary Site
- Create 0-byte NO_SMS_ON_DRIVE.SMS and copy to the root of any drives you wish to exclude from SMS packages
- Add Windows Server Features
- BITS Server Extensions
- Remote Differential Compression
- Add Windows Server Role Services
- ASP.NET
- (and ASP if using as a reporting point)
- Windows Authentication
- IIS6 Metabase Compatibility
- IIS6 WMI Compatibility
- Install WebDAV
- Configure IIS WebDAV
- Enable WebDAV on Default Web Site (or SMSWEB if using a custom site)
- Add Authoring Rule
- All content
- All users
- Read permission
- WebDAV settings
- Allow Anonymous Property Queries – True
- Allow Custom Properties – False
- Allow Property Queries with Infinite Depth – True
- NOTE: If you receive a “WebDAV is not set up properly” error during MP setup later and you *know* you’ve configured the above properly, you may want to refer to this blog post courtesy Ithastobecool.com: http://bit.ly/iYBHRF
- Install Configuration Manager with Custom Settings and select the Secondary Site option
- Install KB 977384 (Configuration Manager 2007 R3 Prerequisite)
- Install Configuration Manager 2007 R3
- Install Configuration Manager 2007 Toolkit 2
- Copy all *.PCK files from the SMSPKG directory on the Primary Site Server to a new SMSPKG directory created on the new Secondary Site
- Execute PreloadPkgOnSite.exe from the Configuration Manager 2007 Toolkit against the *.PCK files on the Secondary Site. To automate the process, I used a modified version of the PowerShell script shown here in John Marcum’s blog post: http://bit.ly/jd3lUx
- NOTE: If you have not previously done so, you’ll need to adjust the PowerShell settings to allow for the execution of scripts using the command Set-ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted –Force
- Copy Packages via the Configuration Manager console to the new Secondary Site
- Monitor the Secondary Site’s distmgr.log for package errors
- Configure Site Roles as desired
Technet also has a reference on setting up a Secondary Site that is a good reference: http://bit.ly/mIHkjY