Publish Cumulative Updates of ConfigMgr via System Center Updates Publisher

There are a multiple methods to deploy the Cumulative Updates (CU) of ConfigMgr, to all the different components (console, client and server). The most common used method is the old-school packages that are created during the upgrade of a site server. This blog post will be about another less often, but definitely not less effective, method of deploying a CU is via System Center Updates Publisher (SCUP). In this post I will go through the steps required to deliver a CU, via SCUP, to ConfigMgr as a software update.

Prerequisites

Before I will go through the steps, it’s important to know that this post does not describe the installation of SCUP itself. In case SCUP is not yet installed, the following posts provide some good guidelines to set it up:

Step 1: Import the updates in SCUP

The first step is to import the (metadata of the) updates in SCUP. In case your not familiar with this, one of the things delivered during the installation of a CU, on the site server, is also a CAB file. This CAB file is located in the SCUP folder of the specific CU and contains the updates and their information in a form that SCUP can read. To import the CAB file in SCUP follow the next steps:

Step Action
1 Open the System Center Updates Publisher 2011 Console, navigate to the Updates workspace and select Import in the Home tab.
2 SCUP_ImportTypeOn the Import Type page, select Specify the path to the catalog to import, Browse to the CAB file and click Next.
3 SCUP_ManualImportOn the Summary page. click Next.
4 SCUP_SecurityWarningOn the Security Warning popup, click Accept.
5 SCUP_ConfirmationOn the Confirmation page, click Close.
6 To verify a successful import, either check the SCUP.log (located in the AppData of the user performing the action), or check the Updates node in the SCUP console that should now show the following updates. SCUP_CU2Updates

Step 2: Publish the updates to WSUS

The second step is to publish the (metadata of the) new updates to WSUS. To publish the (metadata of the) new updates to WSUS follow the next steps:

Step Action
1 Open the System Center Updates Publisher 2011 Console, navigate to the Updates workspace, select the new updates and select Publish in the Home tab.
2 SCUP_PublishOptionsOn the Publish Options page, select Full Content, select Sign all software updates with a new publishing certificate when published software updates have not changed but their certificate has changed and click Next.
3 SCUP_SummaryOn the Summary page, click Next.
4 SCUP_SecurityWarningCVOn the Security Warning popup, select Always accept content from “Microsoft Corporation” and click Accept.
5 SCUP_ConfirmationPOn the Confirmation page, click Close.
6 To verify a successful publish, either check the SCUP.log (located in the AppData of the user performing the action), or check the Updates node in the SCUP console that should now show a Date Published. SCUP_CU2UpdatesP

Step 3: Synchronize software updates

The third, and last, step is to synchronize (the metadata of) these updates now to ConfigMgr. To do this it is necessary to perform two synchronization actions. The first time is to synchronize the new product in to ConfigMgr and the second time is to synchronize (the metadata of) the updates to ConfigMgr. Simply do this all by performing the following steps:

Step Action
1 Open the System Center 2012 R2 Configuration Manager Console, navigate to Software Updates > All Software Updates in the Software Library workspace and select Synchronize Software Updates in the Home tab.
2 SCUP_SystemCenter2012R2ConfigurationManagerAfter the synchronization is done, navigate to Site Configuration > Sites in the Administration workspace and select Configure Site Components > Software Update Point.

In the Software Update Point Component Properties, in the Products tab select System Center 2012 R2 Configuration Manager (located under All Products > Microsoft – Local Publish) and click Ok.

3 Navigate back to Software Updates > All Software Updates in the Software Library workspace and select Synchronize Software Updates in the Home tab.
4 To verify a successful synchronization check the wsyncmgr.log.SCUP_WsyncMgr

Result

At the end it’s always nice to look at the results. Navigate to Software Updates > All Software Updates in the Software Library workspace and in the product filter it’s now possible to select the product System Center 2012 R2 Configuration Manager. By doing this the console will show the newly synchronized updates. After this the CU can be deployed as any other normal (security) update.SCUP_SoftwareUpdates

7 thoughts on “Publish Cumulative Updates of ConfigMgr via System Center Updates Publisher”

    • Hi Justin,
      I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware of that.. I was also not aware of your Technet blog being that active. It could be one of the most active ones I’ve seen and even with very useful information 🙂
      Peter

      Reply
  1. Thanks Peter! Yeah, I often find myself on your site for information :). I switched over to TechNet from my old setupconfigmgr.com blog since onboarding with MS.

    Reply
  2. Hi Peter

    Have a possible issue we have installed SCUP a while back on our CM2012 platform which is dealing with our Corp domain and clients all works well 🙂 the issue I that we have a 2nd domain that we currently have a mp,dp,sup located in the 2nd domain that we are able to deploy the normal stuff through but we also need to get SCUP deployments through the question is will the Cert from the Corp domain work in the 2nd domain.

    regards

    Reply

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