MMS Minnesota 2014

ConfigMgr State and Status Messages

Under the Hood

Greg Ramsey and Wally Mead@ramseyg@Wally_Mead

#MMSMinnesota

MMS Minnesota 2014

Are you confused?

•We’ll try to help!• Once you learn, they are each pretty easy to understand• Differences between state and status messages• Components and features that use each of them• Site systems involved• Troubleshooting issues with them

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Some initial quick differences

Status Messages

• Legacy• Been around from the

beginning• Used by clients and site

systems• Less used by clients now• Each status message is sent

State Messages

• Newer• As of Configuration Manager

2007•Mainly used by clients•May use the FSP role• Only sent if state changed

MMS Minnesota 2014

Status Message Overview

• Been in the product since the beginning• SMS 1.0 and is still used in Configuration Manager 2012 R2

•Mainly used by legacy features and components• For behavior and flow – “here’s what has occurred recently”

• Full status is maintained in the site• Until aged out by site maintenance tasks

• Site system components report status • Clients also generate some status messages• Then processed by Status Manager into the site database when

appropriate

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Status Message Creation

• All components and clients that generate status messages do so on demand• There is no ‘schedule’ for creation of status messages

• All status messages are then forwarded on after creation• There is no ‘schedule’ for forwarding of status messages to the site

for processing• There is no ‘official’ list of all status messages from the

product group• There was a list for a previous version, however never updated

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Status Message Processing

• Status Manager processes status messages• SMS_Status_Manager is the component• Statmgr.log is the log file

• Status message processing• Receives .SVF files to statmsgs folder from components directly or

from management point (from clients)• Inbox structure discussed on next slide

• Status Manager sleeps one minute waiting for new files to process• Batch inserts all processed into the database each cycle

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Status Message Processing (2)

• Status Manager inbox structure:• Statmgr.box• Futureq – messages waiting for site server’s clock to catch up to the status

message time• Outgoing – messages to be forwarded to another site• Queue – messages waiting for processing (if many, such as in a backlog)• Retry – messages waiting to retry if an issue (such as corrupt)• Statmsgs – main inbox for messages to be processed• Statmsgs\Bad – messages that can’t be processed• Temp – temporary folder

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Status Message Processing (3)

• Status message summarization• Provides administrators a ‘quick status’ of appropriate status areas• SMS_Component_Status_Summarizer

• Results viewed in Monitoring/System Status/Component Status• Compsumm.log

• SMS_Offer_Status_Summarizer• Results viewed in Monitoring/Deployments for packages/programs• Offersum.log

• SMS_Site_System_Status_Summarizer• Results viewed in Monitoring/System Status/Site Status• SiteStat.log• Runs hourly by default

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Status Message and Site Systems

• All site systems and site components will generate status messages• These are sent directly to the site server to the Statmsgs inbox

• Clients also generate status messages• These are sent to the management point• Then forwarded to the site server for processing

• Certainly the site server is involved in processing status messages• And they wind up in the site database so the site database server

is involved

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Status Message Historical Data

• Status messages are inserted into the site database at processing time• Unless they are corrupt or bad

• They are maintained in the site database until aging occurs• Status filter rules control life of the status message• Normal status messages are maintained for 30 days• Audit status messages are maintained for 180 days• Both can be adjusted through modification of the appropriate status filter

rule• Site maintenance task deletes aged status messages• Delete Aged Status Messages – runs daily from midnight to 5am

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Status Message Advantages/Disadvantages• Advantages:• History is maintained• Until aged out

• Can be viewed in Configuration Manager Console and Event Viewer• If status filter rule configured to store there

• APIs to create custom status messages• Disadvantages:• Don’t scale well for large environments• Can be confusing to figure out what the current ‘status’ is• Querying/displaying messages can take time

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Demo

Status Messages

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State Message Overview

• New as of Configuration Manager 2007• Designed to be less overhead in the database, less processing intense

on the site server, and easier on the infrastructure• Most new client features use state messages now• All compliance – configuration items/baselines, software updates,

health (both Client Health and daily management point check), Endpoint Protection• Applications• Client deployment (to the fallback status point if specified)

• Only last state is maintained in the site• “Current” state of the object• And maintained until the item is removed (client, CI, etc.)

MMS Minnesota 2014

State Message Creation

• State messages are created on demand• There is no ‘schedule’ for creation of state messages• However, most are created after a scheduled event

• Application deployment, scheduled software update scan, etc.

• All state messages are then forwarded on after creation• There is a ‘schedule’ for forwarding of state messages to the site for processing• By default, this is every 15 minutes for most messages• Endpoint Protection state is delivered immediately as are client deployment

messages• View the StateMessage.log on the client for creation and delivery of

messages• Look for “Successfully forwarded state messages to the MP”

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State Message Processing

Clienta) State Messages stored in Root\CCM\

Statemsg:CCM_StateMsgb) StateSys Preps Messagec) CCMExec Sends to MP (via BITS)

MPa) MP_Relay receives state message, and writes to

sms\mp\outboxes\statemsg.boxb) Mpfdm moves from sms\mp\outboxes\

statemsg.box to site server inboxes\auth\statesys.box\incoming\

Site Servera) Reads files from inboxes\auth\statesys.box\

incoming\b) Calls appropriate SP (SP_Process*) to insert data

to database

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Handy Commands from the ClientPowerShell Command Description

$UpdatesStore = New-Object -ComObject "Microsoft.CCM.UpdatesStore"$UpdatesStore.RefreshServerComplianceState()

Refreshes Update Compliance Status

Get-CimInstance -ClassName CCM_StateMsg -Namespace root\ccm\statemsg

List all state messages on client

Get-CimInstance -ClassName CCM_StateMsg_SerialNum -Namespace root\ccm\statemsg

Show Last State Serial Number

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State Message Processing

• State System processes state messages• For the most part, only clients generate state messages

• A couple of site systems create state messages on behalf of mobile devices• SMS_State_System• Also processes Configuration Manager Console summarization

• For example, Deployments, Client Status, and so on

• State System inbox structure:• Auth\Statesys.box

• Corrupt – messages that can’t be processed due to corruption• Incoming – messages coming from clients (as .SMX files)

• Low, High, and Bad folders – priority based• Outgoing – messages to be forwarded to other sites• Process – messages currently being processed

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Handy Queries from Site Server DBSQL Query Description

select * from v_StateNames Lists Topic Type, Description for each state

select * from v_StateMessageStatistics Displays hourly Processing stats (primary sites only)

SELECT v_StateMessageStatistics.StatDate, v_StateMessageStatistics.TopicType, v_StateMessageStatistics.StateID, v_StateMessageStatistics.TotalMsgs, v_StateMessageStatistics.TotalTime, v_StateNames.StateName, v_StateNames.StateDescriptionFROM v_StateMessageStatistics INNER JOIN v_StateNames ON v_StateMessageStatistics.TopicType = v_StateNames.TopicType AND v_StateMessageStatistics.StateID = v_StateNames.StateIDwhere v_StateMessageStatistics.TopicType in (300,301,302)

Show Software Update State

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Quick Pivot/AnalysisRow Labels Sum of TotalMsgs

Compliant 701828

Downloaded update(s) 222795

Downloading update(s) 139

Evaluation activated 5329

Evaluation failed 193961

Evaluation succeeded 4365387

Failed to download update(s) 6211

Failed to install update(s) 64304

Installing update(s) 25

Non-compliant 417693

Pending system restart 111315

Successfully installed update(s) 246782

Waiting for another installation to complete 19

Waiting for restart 177

(blank)

(blank)

Grand Total 6335965

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State Message and Site Systems

• Clients generate state messages• Normal state messages are sent to the management point

• Then forwarded to the site server for processing• Some state messages are sent from clients to the fallback status

point• Client deployment/assignment messages• Daily management point checks• Highly recommended to have a FSP in each primary site

• Certainly the site server is involved in processing state messages• And they wind up in the site database so the site database server is

involved

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State Message Historical Data

• State messages are inserted into the site database at processing time• They are maintained until the resource or object has been

removed from the site• No aging of them automatically like status messages as only the

current ‘state’ of the client/object is maintained

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State Message Advantages/Disadvantages• Advantages:• Great to see current ‘state’• Summarization is great – for example, the number of non-

compliant clients• Have priorities – higher priority messages will be processed more

quickly than lower priority messages• Scales well even in large environments• Unicode

• Disadvantages:• No history – can’t see how things processed previously

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Demo

State Messages

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MMS Minnesota 2014