As the title describes, I thought that the action configuratuion ‘Action Runs Between’ xx:xx and xx:xx meant that the action stops running at 13:00 and runs further at 12:00 the next day.
Our customer gave us very specific time-frames, running outside these frames is strictly prohibited. Can anyone explain to me why this option does not work as I expect, and if it’s intended: how do I need to use the option then?
– To be precise –
I’m talking about the ‘Execution tab’ in the ‘Take Action’ windows. The 3rd option is ‘Run Between xx:xx and xx:xx CLT’
Did you have the clients pre-cache the patches prior to the window? If not, the requests for the patches probably took up a majority of the hour depending on how many patches needed to be applied.
As far as running between the times specified, I noticed the same problem as well when we first started using it where we would have an action that was scheduled to run until a certain point but continued if it was already in motion. Our solution was to use pre-caching of patches before the window opened and scheduled the task at least a day in advance to give enough time to complete the pre-cache for all endpoints. This brought total patching time to about 20 to 30 minutes.
It should not. Once the patches are present, they should remain if the machine is rebooted because the client would be responsible for removing them. If the action is still scheduled, it should not remove them.
The “Run Between” option should set a timeframe for when the action starts running, but even if it starts 1 minute before the end of the window, it will keep running until it completes I believe.
Given the way BigFix works, it might make sense to actually have a baseline set to run before 12:00 and have the first action cause it to wait until 12:00 to start running. This may cause it to get going a bit quicker. I believe it could be pre-caching the downloads if that box is checked as well.
Ending the action in the console does not stop an action that is already running on the client. It is the client that decides when to run something. Stopping the action will tell the client to update its list of actions and remove that one, but it won’t do all of that until after it finishes.
It would require that the actionscript or relevance of every single item being run check to see if it should run, which would be very messy and complicated.
Is it possible that the window could be earlier or later to make it larger?
How many items are being run that end up taking too long?
I wonder if it is the downloads that are part of the issue, and if adding a relay and adjusting caches would help.