MultiCast Troubleshooting (4300306)

The KACE SDA uses NACK-Oriented Reliable Multicast (NORM), the NORM protocol is designed to provide end-to-end reliable transport of bulk data objects or streams over generic IP multicast routing and forwarding services. NORM uses a selective, negative acknowledgement (NACK) mechanism for transport reliability and offers additional protocol mechanisms to conduct reliable multicast sessions with limited "a priori" coordination among senders and receivers.

Things to consider when working\troubleshooting Multicast deployments:

1. Multicast relies on very specific hardware setups, (switches and router in the Network, are the ones in charge of packet broadcast).

    

2. A Multicast Deployment only works with single partition WIM images, (Multicast with not work with K-Images or Images with two or more partitions, this is a protocol limitation).

    

3. A Multicast Deployment only works with System Images, (it will not work for Scripted Installations or Custom Deployments).

    

4. Deleting a multicast deployment does not terminate the process. This means that you cannot start a new multicast deployment until the existing session times out.
   Workaround: Adjust the deployment timeout period. The default multicast deployment timeout is 10 minutes.

    

5. Multicast is great to deploy Images from more than 10 to +250 devices at the same time, (with Unicast we recommend 10 devices at the same time, depending on your network).

    

6. Due to compatibility issues with UNIX FreeBSD, support for PGM (Pragmatic General Multicast) multicast protocol has been removed from the product, the multicast protocol defaults to NORM (NACK-Oriented Reliable Multicast) and it is the only option. Make sure your switches\routers are compatible with NORM Multicast protocol.
   

    

7. Try with 224.0.1.20  as the Multicast address. (e.g. CISCO and DELL switches handle MultiCast from this IP by default, this can be modified, always review your Switch\Router configuration Manual).

    

8. If another device\service on your network is using port 2112, specify another port number in the Control channel port field, (Settings | Control Panel | Multicast Settings).

    

9. If timeouts are happening or Deployment Errors, lower the Transmission Rate. Multicast is a bandwidth demanding protocol, make sure your network is capable of handling the stress, try with 1MB/s or 2MB/s (Settings | Control Panel | Multicast Settings), this will help to determine if it's an environmental limitation issue.
   

    

10. Ensure the amount of hops are set correctly in Multicast Settings. (Make sure this suits your environment needs, a 'trace-route test' result plus one, is a good number to begin with, for amount of hops needed).

     

11. We recommend using Multicast for closed\isolated networks, or VLANs destined for Imaging, because Multicast traffic could compromise your Office Network if not used carefully.