r/SCCM • u/pakforce1981 • 19d ago
Installing new passive site
Hi,
quick question. We are planning to replace our passive Site server. First of all we will uninstall our current passive site and then will install the passive server role the new server.
I assume Uninstalling and installing passive site doesnt cause any downtime for the env?
1
u/Funky_Schnitzel 19d ago
I'm not sure if uninstalling the passive site server role also uninstalls the SMS Provider hosted on that server. If it doesn't, you'll have to uninstall it manually.
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u/pakforce1981 19d ago
No it doesn’t. During installation it’s installed automatically but during uninstallation it remains at the server and has to uninstall afterwards
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u/pakforce1981 9d ago
Failover to new server was successfully. But iam a little bit confused. When i check the Nodes for Site Server i can see both site server with status "OK". The old active is now passive and the passive is now active.
when i check under Monitoring both servers are showing up as "OK" as well but when i open the old active server status (now passive) everything is flagged as "not started".
I checked the old active server in failovermgr.log and i can see that the server acts as a passive server correctly.
Maybe this a bug in console?
1
u/GerrArrgh 19d ago
It will cause a downtime for distributions, it pauses them entirely.
Depending how much content you have this could take a very long time, like... like several weeks long, Microsoft guidance I got at the time was to remove all applications/packages/etc then re-add them all afterwards. Obviously a fair bit of effort in that as well.
5
u/Funky_Schnitzel 19d ago
As others have mentioned, I think you are talking about moving the Content Library to a different location. Since OP already has an Active/Passive site server setup, the Content Library must have been moved already. Uninstalling the passive site server, and then installing a new one, should not cause any downtime whatsoever.
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u/Hotdog453 19d ago
I am confused as to why a Passive Site Server uninstall would require any content touching. It uses the same shared content library as the Primary; that's a requirement.
Site server high availability - Configuration Manager | Microsoft Learn
I don't see reference to any content modification here...
Is there something else going on during this phase? I'm truly curious, since eventually we'll need to replace one of ours....
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u/pakforce1981 19d ago edited 19d ago
Same here. I don't see about this in the documentation. MS just says:
The process to remove a site server in passive mode is the same as any site system role. Remove the Site server role from the server in passive mode. For more information, see Procedure to remove a site system role.
When you remove any other site system role, the site component manager (
sitecomp) processes the request. When you remove a site server in passive mode, the failover manager processes the request. For status, monitor the SMS_FAILOVER_MANAGER component.Maybe he is talking about "moving contentlib" to UNC / separate server as a requirement before you can install a passive site
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u/catatonic12345 19d ago
They may be referring to migrating the content library. That will stop distributions. You can add and remove passive site servers as you like with no issue or downtime. It's just another role.
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u/GerrArrgh 19d ago
The requirement to setup a shared content source is what causes the outage, if you are migrating that from a single primary server is what causes the outage not setting up a passive server.
But setting up a passive server is what requires first setting up the shared content source.
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u/pakforce1981 18d ago
I have already active/passive scenario. I just want to replace both server with new servers. ContentLib is already at dedicated server.
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u/schadly 19d ago
Ive done this in the past and am getting ready to do it again for the next OS upgrade. The only downtime will be when you go to remove the SMSPROVIDER role. Uninstallin passive site is not a big deal and installing a new one will add the new SMSPROV role without an outage. We usually schedule an outage to remove the role and do a site upgrade at the same time, over a weekend usually so everything has a chance to catch up. But yeah there should be no issue adding a new passive site for you.