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 MMS Minnesota 2014

Some initial quick differences Status Messages State Messages Legacy Been around from the beginning Used by clients and site systems Less used by clients now Each status message is sent 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 MMS Minnesota 2014

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 MMS Minnesota 2014

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 MMS Minnesota 2014

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 MMS Minnesota 2014

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 MMS Minnesota 2014

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 MMS Minnesota 2014

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 MMS Minnesota 2014

Status Message Advantages/Disadvantages 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 MMS Minnesota 2014

Demo Status Messages MMS Minnesota 2014

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” MMS Minnesota 2014

State Message Processing Client State Messages stored in Root\CCM\Statemsg:CCM_StateMsg StateSys Preps Message CCMExec Sends to MP (via BITS) MP MP_Relay receives state message, and writes to sms\mp\outboxes\statemsg.box Mpfdm moves from sms\mp\outboxes\statemsg.box to site server inboxes\auth\statesys.box\incoming\ Site Server Reads files from inboxes\auth\statesys.box\incoming\ Calls appropriate SP (SP_Process*) to insert data to database MMS Minnesota 2014

Handy Commands from the Client PowerShell 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 MMS Minnesota 2014

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 MMS Minnesota 2014

Handy Queries from Site Server DB SQL 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.StateDescription FROM v_StateMessageStatistics INNER JOIN v_StateNames ON v_StateMessageStatistics.TopicType = v_StateNames.TopicType AND v_StateMessageStatistics.StateID = v_StateNames.StateID where v_StateMessageStatistics.TopicType in (300,301,302) Show Software Update State MMS Minnesota 2014

Quick Pivot/Analysis MMS Minnesota 2014 Row 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) Grand Total 6335965 MMS Minnesota 2014

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 MMS Minnesota 2014

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 MMS Minnesota 2014

State Message Advantages/Disadvantages 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 MMS Minnesota 2014

Demo State Messages MMS Minnesota 2014