DSC Setup - Issue

DSC
1

I’m trying to deploy a new DSC pull server to replace our current one that is in production. When trying to deploy a basic script like this.

# Step 1 Install xPSDesiredStateConfiguration
Install-Module -Name xPSDesiredStateConfiguration

# Step 2
# Create the Pull Server. 

Configuration CreatePullServer {
    param (
        [string[]]$ComputerName = 'localhost'
    )

    Import-DSCResource -ModuleName xPSDesiredStateConfiguration -ModuleVersion 9.2.1
    Import-DSCResource –ModuleName PSDesiredStateConfiguration

    Node $ComputerName {
        WindowsFeature DSCServiceFeature {
            Ensure = "Present"
            Name   = "DSC-Service"
        }

        xDscWebService PSDSCPullServer {
            Ensure                   = "Present"
            UseSecurityBestPractices = 0
            EndpointName             = "PSDSCPullServer"
            Port                     = 8080
            PhysicalPath             = "$env:SystemDrive\inetpub\wwwroot\PSDSCPullServer"
            CertificateThumbPrint    = "AllowUnencryptedTraffic"
            ModulePath               = "$env:PROGRAMFILES\WindowsPowerShell\DscService\Modules"
            ConfigurationPath        = "$env:PROGRAMFILES\WindowsPowerShell\DscService\Configuration"
            State                    = "Started"
            DependsOn                = "[WindowsFeature]DSCServiceFeature"
        }

    }

}

#Creates the .mof file
CreatePullServer

# Apply the Pull Server configuration to the Pull Server
Start-DscConfiguration .\CreatePullServer -Wait -Verbose

I’m getting error messages.

PS D:\DSC\_setup> Start-DscConfiguration .\CreatePullServer -Wait -Verbose
VERBOSE: Perform operation 'Invoke CimMethod' with following parameters, ''methodName' = SendConfigurationApply,'className' = MSFT_DSCLocalConfigurationManager,'namespaceName' = root/Microsoft/Windows/DesiredStateConfiguration'.
VERBOSE: An LCM method call arrived from computer ******-DSC02 with user sid ****-1167487308-122181.
VERBOSE: [SYT-PENM-DSC02]: LCM:  [ Start  Set      ]
VERBOSE: [SYT-PENM-DSC02]: LCM:  [ End    Set      ]
The only way DSC Partial Configurations can be used in Push mode is if the Publish-DscConfiguration Cmdlet is used. No other push cmdlet is supported. To avoid this error, either set a metaconfiguration without partial configurations, or use the Publish-DscConfiguration cmdlet to deploy your partial configuration.
    + CategoryInfo          : NotImplemented: (root/Microsoft/...gurationManager:String) [], CimException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : MI RESULT 7
    + PSComputerName        : localhost
 
VERBOSE: Operation 'Invoke CimMethod' complete.
VERBOSE: Time taken for configuration job to complete is 0.908 seconds

PS D:\DSC\_setup>

I’ve tried a few various setup scripts and I seem to run into the same issue every time. I know that I can push the configuration but I’m not really sure what that achieves as the server isn’t complete yet.

Looking online I can’t see many topic that’s that are less then five years old so any help would be appreciated. I’m not looking for Azure DSC at this time either.

1 Like
2

I don’t have any experience with DSC. However, it seems like the client “SYT-PENM-DSC02” needs to be configured to pull configurations from the new DSC Pull server. After reviewing MS docs I found the default RefreshMode for the node metaconfiguration is ‘Push’. The LCM needs to be modified to look at the new pull server and set refreshmode to pull:

3

So I’ve used DSC before and currently have it in production, but wasn’t something I set up directly.

In normal operations, you use an LCM script to register with a pull and tell it what partial configs to pull. For this scenario there isn’t a DSC server yet so it’s not quite that.

When building a DSC server from scratch you can build it using DSC so in this instance there isn’t yet a pull server. There’s plenty of short videos How To Configure A Desired State Configuration (DSC) Pull Server but just seems something might have changed in more recent versions.