1. ConfigMgr State and Status Messages
Under the Hood
Greg Ramsey and Wally Mead
@ramseyg
@Wally_Mead
#MMSMinnesota
MMS Minnesota 2014

2. 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

3. 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

4. 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

5. 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

6. 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

7. 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

8. 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

9. 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

10. 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

11. 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

12. Demo
Status Messages
MMS Minnesota 2014

13. 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

14. 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

15. 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

16. 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

17. 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

18. 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

19. 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
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
MMS Minnesota 2014

20. 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

21. 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

22. 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

23. Demo
State Messages
MMS Minnesota 2014