WuInstall

Caching Downloads

Freitag, den 13. August 2010 um 15:57 Uhr

There is a new feature in WuInstall (WuInstall 1.2. PRO) which helps saving bandwidth.

Imagine the following scenario:
You have a downstream network in a remote location with 15 client machines and a local fileserver, which are updated using WSUS which is in the corporate headquarters, connected with a bandwidth-critical connection (or even updated via the Microsoft Update Site)

In the normal approach (unless you use a proxy), each update would habe to be downloaded 15 times (for each machine once).

It would be nice if only the first machine getting the update would download it to a cache, and the others would get it from there and put it into their local cache (Usually WINDOWS\SoftwareDistribution\Download) - as simple as possible and unattended of course, using a command line script.

Caching Downloads with WuInstall
1. WuInstall searches online for updates (on WSUS or on Windows Update Site, depending on your configuration)

2. WuInstall looks up if these updates also can be found on the local cache (Shared Cache Folder)

2.1. optional: If these updates are not available in the local cache WuInstall downloads them to the Shared Cache Folder

3. WuInstall copies updates to the clients

4. WuInstall installs updates on the clients

Benefits:
download updates only once (regardless the number of clients)
therefore saves bandwidth
uses faster internal connection for update process

For example:
Let p:\TEMP be a shared directory, which all client machines can access with read-write permissions.

You can do like this:

c:\DATA\WuInstall>wuInstall /install_cache p:\temp /logfile c:\data\temp\inst.txt

(the /logfile switch tells WuInstall where to log the output for further analysis)

For an the first client WuInstall puts the following:

2010/08/11-11:08:01  Checking cache for update: Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool - August 2010 (KB890830)
2010/08/11-11:08:01  Update Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool - August 2010 (KB890830) Multi-Lingual - Delta not found in cache directory p:\temp\20110b11-6dd2-4153-a76d-e660ec78ebed
2010/08/11-11:08:01  Update bundle not found, downloading...
2010/08/11-11:08:01  Copying downloads directly...
2010/08/11-11:08:01  Downloading: http://download.windowsupdate.com/msdownload/update/software/uprl/2010/08/windows-kb890830-v3.10-delta_b6366a428af17c9c7c524ebd15aafe3608d3fa39.
exe to p:\temp\20110b11-6dd2-4153-a76d-e660ec78ebed/windows-kb890830-v3.10-delta_b6366a428af17c9c7c524ebd15aafe3608d3fa39.
exe ... 
2010/08/11-11:08:13  OK
2010/08/11-11:08:14  Download OK
2010/08/11-11:08:14  Checking cache again...
2010/08/11-11:08:14  Update Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool - August 2010 (KB890830) Multi-Lingual - Delta found in cache directory, copying to local cache...
2010/08/11-11:08:15 OK

Now calling the same command for the second client (and all the others), WuInstall gets the update from the cache (P:\TEMP) instead of downloading it:

2010/08/11-11:20:27  Checking cache for update: Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool - August 2010 (KB890830)
2010/08/11-11:20:28  Update Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool - August 2010 (KB890830) Multi-Lingual - Delta found in cache directory, copying to local cache...
2010/08/11-11:20:28 OK

You can also use /download_cache, just for downloading the updates to the local cache without installing them.

Do you want to see this feature in action? View a demonstration of the WuInstall install_cache feature.

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