Altiris Task Server Best Practices - Part 3: Configuring Task Server

Learn how to properly configure your Task Server(s) in this third article in the series. We'll cover everything from making sure your servers are available and approved to making sure you've properly assigned collections and configured the Agent.

Task Server Configuration Procedure

It is important to make sure that once the Task Server(s) is installed, we make sure they are configured properly. The primary configuration concerns for Task Server are:

• Assuring that all Task Servers are approved and available
• Assuring that the correct collections are managed by the right Task Servers
• That tickle functions occur at the appropriate intervals
• The Task Servers are active.

Approving Task Servers

Task Servers must be approved before they can be used. This is to prevent outside sources from creating an unauthorized Task Server and gaining access to the Notification Database.

Task Servers must be included in the following collections to be approved Task Servers:

• Task Servers - This collection was created to be used when deploying Task Servers.
• Approved Task Servers - This collection can contains the list of Task Servers that have been added to the Task Servers collection.

Figure 1 - Approved Task Servers Collection

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If you use the Task Servers policy page, Notification Server chooses which Task Server to use based on the collection that the client computer is in.

When a job or task is selected to run, Notification Server first looks at the list you create on the Task Servers policy page. The first available Task Server you have selected to manage a collection is chosen to deliver the job or task to the client computers in the collection. If the first Task Server listed for the collection is not available, the next one on the list is chosen, and so on.

You should assign collections to Task Servers by using the Task Servers policy page, and as explained in the next section. This is very important. Experience has shown that if there are no Task Servers listed on the Task Servers policy page, or if none of the Task Servers listed on this page are available for the collections that are listed, the Notification Server chooses itself as the Task Server to service the requesting client computers.

Assigning Collections to Task Servers

Once all of the Task Servers are correctly configured, you can then assign collections to them.

After a client computer uses a Task Server, it continues to use that same Task Server until its Altiris Agent is restarted. The Altiris Agent is restarted when a computer is restarted.

If you have multiple Task Servers, you can easily configure which client collections get managed by which Task Servers. You do this on the Task Servers policy page. The Task Servers policy page can be used if your network is not organized into subnets already or if you want greater flexibility in managing your collections through Task Servers.

Figure 2 - Task Servers Configuration Page

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If you do not assign Task Servers by using the Task Servers policy page, the Notification Server chooses which Task Server to use to send a job or task, based on which Task Server is closest to the client computer.

If you use the Task Servers policy page, Notification Server chooses which Task Server to use based on the collection that the client computer is in.

When a job or task is selected to run, Notification Server first looks at the list you create on the Task Servers policy page. The first available Task Server you have selected to manage a collection is chosen to deliver the job or task to the client computers in the collection. If the first Task Server listed for the collection is not available, the next one on the list is chosen, and so on.

If there are no Task Servers listed on the Task Servers policy page, or if none of the Task Servers listed on this page are available for the collections that are listed, the Notification Server chooses which Task Server to use based on its proximity to the client computer

Configuring Agent Configuration (Agent Tickle Values)

While it often is not necessary, you may need to adjust the server settings for client tickle. Figure 12 below shows this setting. To access it, go to Task Management<Task Server Configuration<Agent Configuration. You can change options for the following parameters:

• Applies to Collection - This is the collection that these settings changes will apply to
• Task Request Interval - This value is used to control the amount of time between requests to the Task Server for new Tasks, and the value is in minutes. Default is 5 minutes.
• Send Status Interval - This value is used to determine the frequency with which status change activities are sent to the server. These might be something like "Task Started", or "Task Completed". This value is in seconds and the default is 60.

Figure 3 - Agent Configuration Page

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Best Practices: Configuring Task Servers

• NS will choose the Task server to use based on proximity to the client if this page is not configured
• Collections are used to assign Task Servers and also to determine failover. Choose your Failover servers wisely
• Remember to Click "Apply" at the bottom of the Task Servers page. Sometimes it is easy to forget to do that.
• If you have more than 500 machines, do not use the default settings for the Task Request or the Send Status interval. They should be increased to service the load accordingly.
• Also, it is not recommended to change the default collection. Since sub-agents are also required to be installed, in order for Task Server Tasks to be run and completed, this setting will not affect machines that do not have Task Server agents installed.
• Another way to restart the Altiris Agent is to install a software package that has a script that performs a Net stop and a Net start.