Adding a Depot

Observe the following requirements when adding a depot:

  • You can only add a depot within a site.
  • If a master depot is not yet defined for the site, the new depot automatically becomes the master depot of this site. If a master depot has not yet been defined for parent regions, the new depot also automatically becomes the master depot of these regions.
  • If the site master depot exists, the new depot automatically becomes a local depot.
  • Ensure that a shared directory to which all users have read access (and the administrator has read and write access) exists on the computer where you wish to set up a depot.
  • Make sure that all depots of a site are located in the same net­work (LAN).
  • All depots in a site must run under the same network operating system. (The used network operating system is provided when you create the site.)

To add a depot, start the Wizard from the site's context menu:

  1. Enter the name of the computer on which the depot is to be set up. The DSMC checks whether the computer is available. If the computer is not yet physically available, you can terminate creation or initially only create the depot as a logical object.
  2. Select whether the depot supports the SMB protocol and/or the HTTP protocol.
    SMB is the default, for HTTP see also: Creating the HTTP Depot and Management Point (DMZ).
  3. Enter the DSM share on this computer. The DSMC suggests the path that was specified during installation of the first depot, e.g. \\%CurrentServer%\DSM$\. You can use a different path.
    The DSMC checks the share's availability.

    You can specify only UNC names for the DSM share. Once the depot has been created, you are no longer able to change the path.
    Do not install a depot in the directory %ProgramFilesDir%\NetInst – normally: C:\Program Files\NetInst – because this directory is reserved for the DSM Client components.

  4. Enter the user group that accesses the private key required for decrypting the passwords on Management Points. Usually, the members of the group are the accounts of the associated Distribution Services of the respective depots.

    See also ICDB setting Depot > Group with access to the private key.

  5. Confirm your settings.

    The depot will be created via an infrastructure task. You can monitor the status of the task in the Infrastructure Tasks window.

    When a depot is set up, only the DSM binaries and the current configuration (ICDB) are copied to the depot. The Distribution Service then ensures that the new depot contains the repositories and the packages.

Load Balancing between Depots

If all the depots of a site have a (Load Balance Factor, LBF) that is 0 (default), a new depot is also assigned the LBF 0. Otherwise, the new depot is given the lowest LBF of all depots of this site whose LBF is greater than 0.

  • The depots in a site have the LBFs 0, 3 and 5. A new depot is assigned the LBF 3.

If the system enters a LBF greater than 0 for a depot, an appropriate message will be shown.
You can change the load balance factor for the new depot at a later time.

Multiple Depots on the Same Computer

You can create multiple depots on the same computer in different directories, but not within the same site.

If you do this, make sure that the name of a directory or release name is not in another directory or release name – otherwise, the distribution would not consider the files.

  • These two release names "work": NetInst1, NetInst2
  • These two release names do not "work": NetInstall, NetInst.

If you use the same computer for several depots, all these depots should either be the master depot or local depots. Avoid mixing roles since it can have unexpected and undesirable effects in distribution.