Can someone explain to me how the file caching works on the client under the situation described below:
1 - Software distribution task is created using wizard
2 - Action is created and client targeted
Compresses file is downloaded to cache folder, then copied to download folder and extracted
3 - Action fails (relevance logic flawed)
4 - Relevance logic corrected in original task
5 - Action is created and same client targeted
Compresses file is downloaded to cache folder, then copied to download folder and extracted
What we are seeing is that the client deletes the file in the cache folder and re downloads for each action, even though the sha1 on the file is the same. For efficiency, shouldn’t the client check the cache and NOT delete the file if it exists and the sha1 matches? And why copy the compressed file to the download folder instead of just extracting it to the download folder?
After using BigFix all these years, I never really paid much attention because we used it mostly for patching and enforcement. We are now starting to deploy large software installs and the method the agent uses is time consuming and disk expensive.
The client maintains a local cache, but it is limited in size by default (20 MB… It is controlled by the setting _BESClient_Download_DownloadsCacheLimitMB documented here: http://support.bigfix.com/bes/misc/besconfigsettings.html).
I believe that the agent will delete the file from the cache if it is bigger than this size (in an effort not to use disk space), which is why you see the agent delete the file. If the file were smaller than the cache size, then I do not believe it will redownload the file.
So is there some way to temporarily set the cache size larger in the action script of the task? My guess is no since the file download happens first. So we would be forced to create two other tasks, one to set it higher and one to set it back. Correct?
If I can get 8.0 tonight, my problem tomorrow will be solved!
Maybe make the cache size permanently bigger? If you have bonus diskspace (which you could check through relevance), then it might be a good use of the unused space…