Deployment Server not sending config file to client

[balbano]

Hey guys,

We were testing out deployment configs for one of our deployment Light Forwarder apps and happened to delete a file from our deployment client Light Forwarder app default directory ($Splunk_Home/etc/apps/myapp/default).

I would assume that on the next phone home the deployment server would have noticed that the deployment client was missing the deleted file and add it back but that does not seem to be the case. From a network perspective, the Client is phoning home to the server fine but is not picking up the default file that was deleted.

Any thoughts? Anyone run into this?

Let me know.

Thanks.

Brian

[Lowell · Accepted solution]

That's not how it works.

Each time the deployment server builds a new deployment (using the splunk reload deployment-server command) an archived copy of your app is made. A checksum is run against the archive and that value is stored and given out to each client when it phones home. The client also stores this value whenever it installs an app. So the phone home process on the client simply checks the checksum of the currently installed app with the lastest checksum reported by the server, and if they are different then it downloads and install the latest app.

So you can make any changes you want to a client's app folder and the deployment process has no way of knowing about it. The client's app will remain in that state until either (1) a user removed the app on the client which will force a re-install on the next phonehome, or (2) a newer version of the app is deployed, in which case the new checksum value triggers a new download and install for the app.

[balbano]

Thanks for the clarification.

-B