Multicasting Errors

Occasionally, I see image deployments fail to Multicast, and revert to Unicasting. I have seen this behavior appear after upgrading Server 2008 from SP1 to SP2, but I have also seen it without the upgrade.

Troubleshooting the problem
The server provisioning log shows the basic error "Multicast Failed with Exit Code 1", and Unicasting of the image begins via Robocopy. This doesn't tell you much. If you log into the Compute Node Console, you can watch the Multicast Copy or failure happen. You can also see it in your deployment logs, found in \SpoolDir\DeploymentLogs\\

The deployment log should show the Multicasting happening right after your successful Diskpart script. It should look like this:

09/16/09 15:21:33: COMMAND: CcpImg.exe -ipaddress:192.168.0.1 -namespace:"YOUR-SERVERNAME-CCP" -user:"*******" -filesrc:"Images\baseoobe.wim" -filedst:"%INSTALLDRIVE%\baseoobe.wim" -password:"*******"

Occasionally, the WDS Multicast Namespace will get randomly deleted. When this happens the client shows this error, with usage details.

09/16/09 15:21:31: **** Command execution finished, sending result ****

09/16/09 15:21:32: **** Result sent to server ****

09/16/09 15:21:33: COMMAND: CcpImg.exe -ipaddress:192.168.0.1 -namespace:""

usage:
CcpImg -unattendSrc:
-unattendDest:
-user:
-password:
CcpImg -wimSrc:
-extractDir:
CcpImg -ipAddress:

-fileSrc:
-fileDst:
-nameSpace:
-user:
-password:
09/16/09 15:21:34: **** Command execution finished, sending result ****
09/16/09 15:21:34: **** Result sent to server ****
09/16/09 15:21:39: COMMAND: robocopy "Z:\\Images" "C:\\\\" "baseoobe.wim" /R:5 /W:5
-user:"*******" -filesrc:"Images\baseoobe.wim" -filedst:"%INSTALLDRIVE%\baseoobe.wim" -password:"*******"

NOTE that the namespace is blank, represented by 2 double quotes.

The workaround - Reinstall WDS.

This does not require a reinstall of HPC.

1. From an administrative command prompt, run this command:

Servermanagercmd -remove WDS

2. Reboot the Head Node.

3. Log in again and launch another administrative command prompt.

Servermanagercmd -install WDS-Transport

4. Reboot the Head Node.

Your multicasting issues should be fixed.