WSUS Configuration Questions

Doesn’t this guy look happy?  He’s found WSUS!

I had a couple of really good WSUS questions in email recently, and I wanted to share them with you here.

Dan P. writes:

“I am interested in chaining WSUS servers and have tried in a lab environment, but wasn’t sure if correctly. Can you answer me this? Will the downstream WSUS server receive all downloads and metadata from the upstream WSUS, or only those updates approved by the primary WSUS? Can the downstream WSUS therefore only distribute or approve the already approved updates of say WSUS01, the update location.”

Well, I have found some documents that may help you (if you haven’t seen them already):

This one is on “Choosing a Deployment Type”:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/windowsserver2003/library/WSUS/WSUSDeploymentGuideTC/ccf5da8c-62c3-4dfd-a5a4-b4da50f0b2ff.mspx

The way I see it, there are two issues: Setting up the Chain (which is simply a transport for ALL update metadata – not any information about the approval information) and the “Management Style”. 

Here’s a document on the why’s and how’s of “Choosing a Management Style”:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/windowsserver2003/library/WSUS/WSUSDeploymentGuideTC/ccf5da8c-62c3-4dfd-a5a4-b4da50f0b2ff.mspx

So your choices are to create “Replica” WSUS Servers (Centralized Management), or “Autonomous” ones (Distributed Management).  Autonomous servers still get the updates and update metadata from the upstream servers, but they do not get any approvals forced down to them.  Replicas also receive the approval information.

As to the issue of when the updates are actually transported down the chain, you could use the “Deferred Download of Updates” option.  In that case, only approved updates would then be downloaded and transported down the stream (in the Centralized Management Scenario).

Here is the WSUS Deployment Guide:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=E99C9D13-63E0-41CE-A646-EB36F1D3E987&displaylang=en

And the Operations Guide:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=E26BCDB4-EF0B-4399-8A71-9B3B00C4F4CD&displaylang=en

Hope you find this useful, Dan!