Uniprint: How can I test the Pharos Updater Service?

Question:

The "Pharos Updater Service" in the Pharos Administrator shows it as either red, not running or status unknown. What can I do to test this service and help find out why this is happening? 

Troubleshooting:

First thing is to verify that the Updater Service responds to the simple "Ping" URL, the Updater Service will respond with a "Pong" in the web browser. To do this we use the below URLs in the order listed.

*The most basic test is the ping test, the Updater Service does not have to respond with any data, simply a "Pong, I am alive and reachable" type of response. We try this using first the localhost, then IP Address, then Hostname and finally FQDN.

https://localhost:2350/PharosSystems/Updater/Ping

https://<IPaddress>:2350/PharosSystems/Updater/Ping

https://<hostname>:2350/PharosSystems/Updater/Ping

https://<FQDN>:2350/PharosSystems/Updater/Ping

• Try the IP address one from a browser on another server too

• Should get a 'pong' response for each of these. If not then we need to look at the networking level.

If these do not work and the first test fails when using LOCALHOST fails then we should try to repair the self-signed SSL Certificate the updater installs for itself by following the below steps.

1. Open an administrative command prompt and navigate to the install directory of the Pharos Updater Service, by default this is "C:\Program Files (x86)\Pharos\UpdaterService".

2. Run the command "PharosSystems.Updater.Service.exe --uninstall" to remove the service which will remove the SSL Certificate the service uses.

3. Then run the command "netsh http delete sslcert 0.0.0.0:2350" to remove the binding of the service.

4. Next run the command "netsh http show sslcert 0.0.0.0:2350" to verify that there is nothing bound to the port.

5. Finally run the command "PharosSystems.Updater.Service.exe --install" to re-install the service again which will regenerate an SSL Certificate and bind it to port 2350.

6. To verify that the SSL Certificate is bound to port 2350 run "netsh http show sslcert" one last time.

7. Open the Windows Services Console and start the "Pharos Systems Updater Service".

 If these do work, then try the next test which only asks what packages have been installed (doesn't need to query any other servers) by using the same three

https://localhost:2350/PharosSystems/Updater/packages/localhost/installed

https://<IPaddress>:2350/PharosSystems/Updater/packages/<IPaddress>/installed

https://<Hostname>:2350/PharosSystems/Updater/packages/<Hostname>/installed

https://<FQDN>:2350/PharosSystems/Updater/packages/<FQDN>/installed

If these work then we want to try the updates call which gets the server to check its feeds (eg AWS) as well as local cache.

https://localhost:2350/Pharossystems/Updater/packages/localhost/updates ?

https://<IPaddress>:2350/Pharossystems/Updater/packages/<IPaddress>/updates ?

https://<Hostname>:2350/Pharossystems/Updater/packages/<Hostname>/updates ?

https://<FQDN>:2350/Pharossystems/Updater/packages/<FQDN>/updates ?

Note: To use this last query with newer versions of updater service, it needs debug=1 on the end, like: https://{ yourserverhostname}:2350/Pharossystems/Updater/packages/{yourserverhostname}/updates?debug=1

If the Installed queries succeed, but the updates queries fail, then it might pay to disable all sources except the local sources and try again. To do that you can use the batch file that was released with SP5 from our web site, or you can open the updater.config file (in Pharos\UpdaterService folder) and replace the <disabledPackageSources /> tag with the following:

<disabledPackageSources>
<add key="Stable" value ="true" />
<add key="MASTER-PACKAGE-CACHE" value="true" />
</disabledPackageSources>

 Once the file is updated you will need to restart the "Pharos Systems Updater Service"