Testing management point connectivity is just one of those things that SMS/ConfigMgr admins need to do on a regular basis. You can always peruse the mpcontrol.log to check management point health, but to make it easier, the product team has provided some handy test urls that can be used instead of reviewing the mpcontrol.log all the time.
Using the management point test urls is a pretty old tip. It's documented in a ton of places including the SMS 2003 FAQ, the Configuration Manager 2007 documentation, and a myriad of other Web locations. However, there is a catch when using these test urls in Configuration Manager sites that may not seem obvious at first and is a change from SMS 2003 behavior. I noticed this while working on something in my lab so I figured it would be a good tip to pass along.
When testing management point connectivity in SMS 2003 sites, you just open up a Web browser instance and go to: http://<ManagementPointName>/sms_mp/.sms_aut?mplist. If all is well with the management point you will see:
(Yes, I know there's nothing there...that's a good thing for SMS 2003 sites and what you should see if the management point is responding to http requests 
)
In Configuration Manager sites, you actually do see something when you browse to the test urls and Don Hite has done a nice job documenting some of that behavior in his blog already.
So, in SMS 2003 sites, seeing nothing is good and something (IIS errors) is bad. In Configuration Manager sites, seeing something is good and nothing (IIS errors) is bad...that sounded a lot clearer in my head.
Anyway, moving on. If you browse to that mplist url while checking management point communication in a Configuration Manager 2007 site, you will see something like:
Notice anything odd there? You entered the url to test one management point and Viola! all the management points in the site appeared. So, you may think to yourself, "Wow! Now I only need to check one test url to verify all the management points are working and all must be good with all of the management points displayed" so now you can stop checking right? WRONG!!!
When using the mplist test url, you much change it each time to verify that the management point defined by <ManagementPointName> is online and functioning properly. This is because, when the management point test url is queried, it connects to the site database and retrieves a list of management points and displays them. It does not connect to each management point listed in the query results displayed. Don't believe me? Check this out (and no I won't tell you what database table I'm altering here!):
So now you know that you need to test each management point individually right? Now, lets talk about what generally happens when you don't see what you're supposed to see displayed when using the test url.
Oops. IIS 500 error. In general, IIS 500 errors are telling you that something has gone wonky with the site database or access permissions to it for the management point computer.
Uh-oh. IIS 404 error. IIS is taking a nap or has become completely catawompus for some other reason.
Those are just a couple of quick examples of failed management point communication and are generally the most frequently seen so I added them to this post. The main reason for my posting this blog entry is not to fully discuss management point failure conditions, but rather just to let you know that even though you see multiple management point computers returned by the mplist test url, you definitely still need to check each management point individually.
Hope this helps,
~Jeff
At long last, the Configuration Manager 2007 SDK has shipped! This is really a great release and the product of a lot of hard work by only a few SDK writers.
Some stats that compare this release to the SMS 2003 SDK release that may surprise you:
| |
Configuration Manager |
SMS 2003 |
| Words |
1,136,512 |
396,803 |
| Topics |
| Conceptual/non-managed |
1,840 |
| Managed |
2,362 |
| Total |
4,202 | |
| Conceptual/non managed |
670 |
| Managed |
1,902 |
| Total |
2,572 | |
| Code Snippets |
470 |
200 |
Considering that there were 8+ years of work in the SMS 2003 SDK and the Configuration Manager 2007 SDK is the result of only the last 1.5 years, I think these guys did an amazing job
Oh yeah, in case you're wondering how to get it, here you go: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=113689 .
Happy coding,
~Jeff