Welcome to the community forums for Theopenem. All responses are provided by other users that wish to help out. Theopenem will not respond to these posts. If you require more assistance than what the community can provide, we offer various paid support options.

Multicast hanging for multiple PCs


  • @theopenem_admin, any ideas?


  • Can you try multicasting with just a single computer?


  • @theopenem_admin that works without any issues, though


  • Did you start a multicast session with just a single PC or did you do a unicast. If a multicast session works with a single PC then everything is working properly, but something is preventing the multicast to multiple pcs.


  • @theopenem_admin yes, I mentioned it in the first post - I tried running multicast as a task for a group made of 1 PC and also as a on-demand task for 1 PC and it worked flawlesly... it even worked when I started multicast for a group of 3 PCs, but tapped a key as soon as it showed the dialog for starting deploying on the first PC, and the other PCs weren't ready...
    But if another PC connects, it just hangs on that screen waiting for something.



  • The only other thing I could think of is to change the multicast block size. In your sender arguments try using:

    --blocksize 700
    

  • @theopenem_admin after setting this option in Com Server Multicast settings, after I click start multicast for a group, it says "Could not start the multicast application"


  • Fixed it - had to add a space before "--blocksize", or it wasn't in the command:

    07-27-22 08:01 Starting Multicast Session With The Following Command:
    cmd.exe /c ""C:\Program Files\Theopenem\Toec-API\\private\apps\udp-sender.exe" --file "O:/\images\Win10-EduPro-IDE_Test\hd0\part2.ntfs.lz4" --portbase 9370 --min-receivers 2 --ttl 32 --interface X.X.143.115 --mcast-rdv-address X.X.143.115--blocksize 700"
    Session Started And Was Forced To Quit, Try Running The Command Manually
    

  • FWIW, I have the same situation, and the only thing that seemed to work for me was to make sure that all storage settings were set to local, on the main server, and secondary com servers, and to make sure upload/deploy direct to SMB was disabled. Works like a charm after that.


  • @hodgesc I've got the system as Proxmox VM with 50GB C:\ drive and 1TB O:\ drive, which has the images. I don't use any secondary servers (although I think having one server per VLAN would work, I don't think it's the right way to do it, as I have system with like 5 VLANs or so) and I've never used the SMB option. Also "deploying via SMB" is a thing?


  • @eruthon Upload/Deploy Direct to SMB is the last option under Admin Settings --> Imaging Client. To multicast across VLANs, you'd have to have a com server on each vlan and run the multicast session through there.


  • @hodgesc And the com server has to be a standalone windows server with its own installation of TOEM or it could be just one windows server with one toem, but set up with multiple network interfaces and I'd just add different com servers on those networks?


  • @eruthon what I think you'd actually have to do if you just want to use one actual system to run this on multiple network interfaces, is to:

    1. Clone the TOEC-API site for each IP.
    2. Bind each IP to the site in IIS
    3. Setup a "com server" for each IP in the UI.
    4. Modify the web.config for each com server and verfiydb.
    5. Add them to the default cluster as passive servers with the multicast, TFTP, and imaging options.
      (edit) 6. Go into HeidiSQL, change the root account to have remote access. (almost forgot that)

    That should do it I think.


  • @hodgesc
    You are 100% correct. Love seeing people with an understanding of how things work, not to discount others that are still learning.


  • @hodgesc will try, thanks for steps, will let you know if it works!


  • @theopenem_admin I wish I could say I was an expert, but I literally just started using this last thursday. However, I've been in systems management for 16 years so I've seen enough to figure things out quickly.


  • @hodgesc ok..

    1. I opened the IIS config file (c:\windows\system32\inetsrv\config\ApplicationHost.config) and copied the Toec-API page, the second one called Toec-API-129
    2. Every web page till now had "all unassigned" interfaces, I gave the new one the IP address X.X.129.253
    3. I created a new com server, with its new IP address, gave it the same local storage location as the main server
    4. I copied the folder of Toec-API as Toec-API-129 folder, and changed the com server ID in webconfig to the one generated by website for new com server
    5. I added the new com server to the cluster, gave it those 3 functions

    I know I forgot the steps for database, but I'd like to know what exactly to do, please.

    Now I can succesfully connect to the web interface on both IPs, but PXE for PCs on the new VLAN run into PXE-E99 error (worked for every PC on the main IP; I added "next-server X.X.129.253" in my isc-dhcp config for the VLAN), while if I let the old server IP for all VLANS, it gives server timeout.

    8820a18f-5945-4266-9c79-b37eee130b41-image.png


  • @eruthon Couple of quirks I forgot about.

    Some permissions don't seem to copy over.

    1. You'll need to make sure that iis_iusr has read and execute permissions for the Toec-API-129 folder.
    2. Within the Toec-API-129 folder, you'll need to make sure iis_iusr has modify rights to the "private" folder. Be sure to apply permissions to child objects.
    3. Open HeidiSQL, enter the root password (located in the connection string in the Toems-API web.config folder, and click open. At the top, click the user manager icon (looks like 2 people). Click root on (the one with the host as your servername), change the "from host" setting to Access from anywhere.

  • @hodgesc

    • added the permissions for folders (IIS_USERS were missing, now it's the same as the original folders);
    • changed the settings for database, now it shows "%" character
      MobaXterm_CHI9kB5QLG.png

    The problem with the PXE boot continues though... I can't PXE boot from any other VLAN other then the one with first network interface. Seems like it can't read from tftp server (which is on for both com servers in their configs and in their cluster settings).