Pull Server Connection Error

DSC
1

Hi Folks,

I’m building my first PowerShell DSC pull server pilot. When trying to setup the client to perform its first pull I get the connection error below. Here’s what works:

  1. From the client I have successfully pulled up the pull server URL (shows the service is responsive and listening)
  2. Established a PowerShell remoting session to the Pull Server from the client
  3. Performed ‘winrm id’ (authenticated and unauthenticated)
  4. Verified that the client’s network interface is not set to ‘public’
  5. wsman/config/client TrustedHosts=“*” (but I think the successful PowerShell remoting shows that WinRM is not the issue).

Any ideas?

Here’s the client script.

Configuration SetPullMode 
{
	param([string]$guid)
	Node cheftest
	{
		LocalConfigurationManager
		{

			ConfigurationMode = 'ApplyOnly'
			ConfigurationID = $guid
			RefreshMode = 'Pull'
			DownloadManagerName = 'WebDownloadManager'
			DownloadManagerCustomData = @{
				ServerUrl = 'http://mypullserver.net:80/PSDSCPullServer.svc';
				AllowUnsecureConnection = 'true' }
		}
	}
}

SetPullMode –guid $guid
Set-DSCLocalConfigurationManager -Computer cheftest -Path ./SetPullMode –Verbose

With the output:

    Directory: C:\temp\SetPullMode


Mode                LastWriteTime     Length Name                                          
----                -------------     ------ ----                                          
-a---         12/1/2014   3:30 PM       1704 cheftest.meta.mof                             
VERBOSE: Performing the operation "Start-DscConfiguration: SendMetaConfigurationApply" on ta
rget "MSFT_DSCLocalConfigurationManager".
VERBOSE: Perform operation 'Invoke CimMethod' with following parameters, ''methodName' = Sen
dMetaConfigurationApply,'className' = MSFT_DSCLocalConfigurationManager,'namespaceName' = ro
ot/Microsoft/Windows/DesiredStateConfiguration'.
The client cannot connect to the destination specified in the request. Verify that the 
service on the destination is running and is accepting requests. Consult the logs and 
documentation for the WS-Management service running on the destination, most commonly IIS 
or WinRM. If the destination is the WinRM service, run the following command on the 
destination to analyze and configure the WinRM service: "winrm quickconfig".
    + CategoryInfo          : ConnectionError: (root/Microsoft/...gurationManager:String)  
   [], CimException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : HRESULT 0x80338012
    + PSComputerName        : cheftest
 
VERBOSE: Operation 'Invoke CimMethod' complete.
VERBOSE: Set-DscLocalConfigurationManager finished in 8.191 seconds.

BTW, this forum and ‘The DSC Book’ have been very very helpful! :slight_smile:

2

DSC doesn’t use Remoting, it uses WinRM - they’re not the same. And Pull uses neither, it’s just HTTP. What you’re doing is attempting to Push a config to a node. That requires WinRM to the node. Have you enabled that on the node? Whatever machine is running your script must be abLe to connect to the specified target node.

3

Yep, it’s a winRM session to cheftest (not to the pull server) that’s failing here. You can either run that configuration locally to set up the LCM, or enable WinRM (or PSRemoting; both will work) on the cheftest node.

4

Yup, that fixed it. WinRM was not fully running on the client (cheftest) and I was turned around thinking that WinRM was being used to communicate with the pull server rather than only being used to locally configure the client.

Thanks for your prompt responses!