Populating a Directory from UNC performs wretchedly while 'building file list'

DSC
1

I’m trying to poplulate a directory on my servers using the File resource type, as follows:

File ToolsDir
{
Type = “Directory”
DestinationPath = $Node.ToolsDirDestinationPath
SourcePath = $Node.ToolsDirSourcePath
Ensure = “Present”
MatchSource = $True
Recurse = $True
Force = $True
Credential = $Credential
Checksum = “modifiedDate”
}

This works --but the performance is extremely poor, in that the client spends an inordinate amount of time ‘building file list without using cache’.

Anyone know how to make the client use a cache, or to otherwise speed up this process?

Or maybe they’ve fixed this in WMF5?

Many Thanks.

2

Hard to say; the File resource is the only one written in native code, so we can’t really see what’s going on there.

I can tell you that the DSC cache folder is also automatically cleared every time a new version of the configuration is applied with Start-DscConfiguration, or when a new version is downloaded from the pull server. So the cache only really helps when the system is being checked for drift from an existing configuration.

3

Thanks for the reply. I’ve removed this from my configuration for now.
I really need this to work, so I’m going to try write up a custom resource that simply uses robocopy mirroring if a checksum file differs in its content.