HOW TO: Your very own Adobe Update Server (Windows)

Well, I thought I'd contribute something after wasting time sifting through info on how to get this done. It's not a hard process at all, once the steps get organized correctly.

If you are reading this post, you most likely have already seen:

http://helpx.adobe.com/creative-cloud/packager/update-server-setup-tool.html

Maybe you’ve seen the dry (read: hard to stay awake and boring) video Adobe has posted as well and yet here we are… I found the materials Adobe provided informative yet riddled with inconsistencies and scatter brained writing. This guide will get you to a working install with minimal pain and effort. I’m sure plenty of you have Mac’s that you’d like to get running as an update server. Good luck, we’re a pc shop and that’s what this guide is going to be on. You can still update Mac’s with a windows based server. Mac users that want to setup an update server on a Mac will have to try and endure that video.

I like complaining about things, so if you want the relevant info, I bolded it. If you need to change the command to fit your system, I highlighted the relevant section in red. You’re welcome.

Requirements:

Windows Operating System 64-bit (just so the file structure makes sense, if you are running 32-bit, that’s fine, but you’ll need to make the necessary changes to my write-up.)

The requirements for CPU, Memory, and hard-drive free space are minimal (My freshly sync’d update directory is only 30.2GB). I’m going to lean on the safe side and say leave a few hundred gigs free on the hard-drive. All you are doing is making a file store that can be accessed via http from your clients. Any modern day computer can be your host. Have hundreds of client computer that will be downloading from your update server? That’s up to you on how you will want to handle it. Do DNS load balancing across multiple update servers, deploy different override files to different groups of clients that point those groups of clients to different servers, or use sas drives and team multiple gigabit Ethernet ports. I’m sure you’ll figure something out to handle your particular situation. I am just going to focus on a simple step-by-step to get you on your way.

Step 1: Install Creative Cloud Packager

This was the first thing that wasn’t clear to me. I’m new to Creative Cloud for Teams. I have 20 computers and knew that updating would be an issue with our internet connection. I intuitively searched for a way to set up an update server and came across the article linked earlier. “Note: AUSST is available in the utilities folder of Adobe® Creative Cloud™ Packager installation.“ Oh, that’s nice. No link. No help on where to get it…

You can grab the download from your “Manage Your Team” control panel. It’s on the right side under “IT Deployment”. Download it, install it. This how-to isn’t about packages and how awesome they are for deployment or how to use them. So close the packager when you are done installing and move on to step 2.

Step 2: Create a root directory to store all of your updates.

I think it’s safe to assume that the root directory will only grow in size over time, so put it somewhere with a few hundred gigs of free space. The cloud is still young but I expect that amount to last you a while. To keep this easy, I created my directory as such:  G:/CreativeCloudUpdate

Step 3: Run the AdobeUpdateServerSetupTool for the initial sync

Open up command prompt as an administrator and type the following:

cd "c:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Adobe\OOBE\PDApp\CCP\utilities\AUSST"

AdobeUpdateServerSetupTool --root="G:/CreativeCloudUpdate" --fresh

When it is done updating, leave the command prompt up, you’ll need it again.

Step 4: Create the client config file

For whatever reason, the AdobeUpdateServerSetupTool can’t create a config folder. So you’ll have to make it yourself if you want this to work.

Go to G:/CreativeCloudUpdate and create a folder called   config

Head back over to the command prompt and type the following:

AdobeUpdateServerSetupTool --genclientconf="G:/CreativeCloudUpdate/config/AdobeUpdaterClient" --root="G:/CreativeCloudUpdate/" --url=http://192.168.1.4/

If this worked, you should get something like the following:

“Generate Client Configuration XML chosen.

Files generated at specified path.”

Double check to make sure the files are generated inside the G:/CreativeCloudUpdate/config directory.

Step 5: Setup the Web Server

We’ll use Apache 2.2 for this setup. Yes, I am aware 2.4 is out, and 64-bit is available and that there are different web servers and and and. If you want to set something else up, go for it, be my guest, but you won’t find compile or update directions here. Also, if you want to use IIS, again, go for it. I didn’t find anything wrong with the directions in the very first link in this post. Remember, this guide is simplicity focused. I expect you to know how to keep your own network up to date.

ALLOW PORT 80 THROUGH WINDOWS FIREWALL OR ANY OTHER FIREWALL SOFTWARE YOU ARE RUNNING ON THE SERVER!

Download and install the following:

http://mirror.metrocast.net/apache//httpd/binaries/win32/httpd-2.2.25-win32-x86-no_ssl.msi

You can keep all of the defaults during install.

Once installed, you’ll have a little feather and play button in your system tray. Double click on that to bring up the server monitor. STOP the process.

Navigate to C:\Program Files (x86)\Apache Software Foundation\Apache2.2\conf

Open up httpd in a text editor like notepad, you’ve got a little editing to do. Do a search and replace. You’ll want to find EVERY OCCURANCE of the following sentence:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Apache Software Foundation\Apache2.2\htdocs

And replace it with the following sentence:

G:/CreativeCloudUpdate

Save the file. Go back to the Apache server monitor and start the process.

Step 6: Setup the Clients

The file is located here: G:\CreativeCloudUpdate\config\AdobeUpdaterClient\win

And here: http://192.168.1.4/config/AdobeUpdaterClient/win

It is called: AdobeUpdater.OVERRIDES

And it needs to end up here on the client computers:

In Windows XP:

\Documents and Settings\All Users\ApplicationData\Adobe\AAMUpdater\1.0\AdobeUpdater.Overrides

In Windows 7/Vista:

\ProgramData\Adobe\AAMUpdater\1.0\AdobeUpdater.Overrides

In Mac OS X:

/Library/Application Support/Adobe/AAMUpdater/1.0/AdobeUpdater.Overrides

It is your choice concerning how to get the overrides file onto the client computer. THE BEST WAY is to include it in the package you deploy from the Creative Cloud Packager(not covered in this guide). If you already have Creative Cloud installed and want to start updating via the server you just setup: You could use group policy to deploy the file. If you only have a handful of computers, you could put it on by hand. You could script it. You could email it to all your users and tell them to place the file. Pick whatever you feel will work best for you in your environment.

IF you are just deploying the Creative Cloud in your environment and were smart enough to think ahead and setup the update server FIRST. Look up (If you have to, it’s really intuitive) how to use the package manager and make sure to change the package configuration to use this overrides file.

Step 7: Check for and download updated files to your update server

To manually do this, open up command prompt as an administrator and type the following:

cd "c:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Adobe\OOBE\PDApp\CCP\utilities\AUSST"

AdobeUpdateServerSetupTool --root="G:/CreativeCloudUpdate" --incremental

To do this automatically you need to make a scheduled task to run the command above. The only issue I have run into is the task does not seem to run unless you are logged into the server. If no-one is logged in, the task triggers, but an update never happens.

All in all, I am happy that there was a way to do this. I AM NOT HAPPY that Adobe made it an after thought. A system service would have been a very elegant solution or you know, a simple custom server app that does everything in this guide for you AND makes it easy to run the incremental updater on a schedule. But noooooo, they couldn’t be bothered to do that, I mean really, who wants their own update server anyways…