Settings

You can configure the general properties for the Distribution object.

Active
A Distribution must be active to make it available to Subscribers.

Use Digest
Digests are used by Distributors and Subscribers to verify that Distributions have not been tampered with while in transit. The digest provides a checksum for the Subscriber to compare.

Creating a digest takes more time on larger Distributions. The number of minutes per megabyte is dependent on the hardware configuration of the server where the digest is being created.

Encrypt
You can have the Distribution encrypted if you are sending it outside your secured network. Encryption provides security for the Distribution during transit between the Distributor and Subscriber. Select between Strong and Weak encryption.

If you want to enable encryption, you must do the following for encryption to work:

  1. Manually copy the .csr template file in the Subscriber server's \zenworks\pds\ted\security\csr directory to the same location on the Distributor's file system. This file contains a public key the Subscriber and Distributor use for passing encryption keys with encrypted Distributions.

  2. In ConsoleOne®, click the Sign CSR Files menu option on the Distributor object, then locate and sign the .csr file copied from the Subscriber. This creates a new .cer file for the Subscriber, containing the public key.

  3. Manually copy the new .cer file from the Distributor and replace the Distributor's current .cer file on the Subscriber. After the first encrypted Distribution is sent to the Subscriber, the new encryption certificate is used for all Distributions.

Manually copying the certificate files is necessary to ensure that the public key is not compromised.

Maximum Revisions
This number helps you to control disk space usage by determining how many versions of a particular Distribution are kept in the Distributor and Subscriber working directories. The default is 10 for the File Distribution. Save more revisions if the data is changing often and the changes are minimal (smaller delta files). Save fewer revisions if the data is not changing very often, or if a significant amount of data is changing (larger delta files). If you select 1, the Delete Previous Revision field is available.

Delete Previous Revision Before Receiving Next
This option is available if you selected 1 as the number for the Maximum Revisions field. If the Distribution is so large that it might compromise the available disk space on the Subscriber server, you can conserve disk space by selecting this option, which causes the previous version to be deleted before receiving the next version. Distributions can contain a substantial number of files, such as an entire 4 GB volume with greater than 50,000 file entries.

If you leave the check box empty, the new version is received in its entirety before the older version is deleted. Either way, you have only the one version of the Distribution in the Subscriber's working directory after the Distribution has been received.

Priority
You can give the Distribution a priority that determines how it is sent in relation to other Distributions. A High priority means it is sent before Medium or Low priority Distributions.

Distributor
The DN of the Distributor object that builds and sends this Distribution. This attribute cannot be modified. It was entered when the object was created.

Description
Provide useful details about the Distribution. For example, for a Desktop Application Distribution, provide the name of the application, the files and directories it contains, intended user groups, and so on.



ZENworks Online Documentation

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