About peer-to-peer downloading feature
The peer-to-peer downloading feature is available starting from IT Management Suite version 8.0 HF5.
The peer-to-peer downloading feature lets you download and distribute the software delivery and patch packages to Windows computers. It minimizes the software delivery time and provides you with a reliable software delivery to all endpoints. The peer-to-peer downloading feature significantly reduces the load on the network and on the IT Management Suite infrastructure.
You can benefit from this feature when distributing the Windows cumulative updates and the Office 365 updates to your client computers. You can also use this feature when managing the Windows 7, 8, and 10 devices at sites with low-bandwidth connections and no dedicated package servers.
| The peer-to-peer downloading feature is not supported in Deployment Solution. |
Note that peer-to-peer downloading is different from multicast downloading. The idea of multicast downloading is to temporarily use one regular client computer as a package server which downloads a package from Notification Server and then transmits it to the other client computers. In peer-to-peer downloading, the peer computers find each other, request the information about the packages, and download the package from the peer computer that has the required package available.
| You cannot use multicast downloading and peer-to-peer downloading simultaneously. |
The concept of peer-to-peer downloading is as follows:
Symantec Management Agent discovers the peers. | After you enable peer-to-peer downloading, Symantec Management Agents discover peers by sending broadcast or unicast HTTP messages and join the Distributed Hash Table (DHT) network. |
HTTP server stores the list of packages. | The HTTP server is part of the Symantec Management Agent process. It starts automatically after you enable peer-to-peer downloading. The HTTP server stores the list of package GUID-s with their associated states. The Package Delivery component on Symantec Management Agent informs the HTTP server about the folder where the downloaded packages are stored and about the state of each package. |
DHT provides the package information to the peers. | The DHT algorithm uses the list of packages from HTTP server to generate the information for the peers in the DHT network. When the peers look for a specific package, they look for the state of the package and the location of the package in the DHT network. |
Package Delivery downloads the packages. | When the Package Delivery must download a package, it first looks for the GUID of the required package in DHT. DHT responds with a list of peer computers where this package is being downloaded or already available. If the package is being downloaded on one of the peer computers, the Package Delivery retries to download the package from this peer later. If the package is already available on some peer computers, the Package Delivery attempts to download the package from one of these peers. Once the package is downloaded, the computer changes the state of this package in DHT to "ready". When the Package Delivery cannot find the required package on the peer computers, it changes the state of this package in DHT to "downloading" and starts downloading the package from Package Server or Notification Server. When the download of this package finishes, its state is changed to "ready". |
Configuring the settings for peer-to-peer downloading
You configure the peer-to-peer downloading settings in the Symantec Management Console, on the Targeted Agent Settings page, on the Downloads tab.
| Peer-to-peer downloading does not function or functions with limitations if you remove the package from the client computer immediately or after a few days. To avoid this issue, you must configure the Package files will be deleted from the client computer if unused for option as required. The suggested minimum period for the package to be stored on the client computer is 1 week. You can configure this option in the Symantec Management Console, on the Symantec Management Agent Package page. To access this page, in the Symantec Management Console, on the Settings menu, click All Settings, and then in the left pane, expand Settings > Agents/Plug-ins > Symantec Management Agent > Windows.
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To configure the settings for peer-to-peer downloading
- In the Symantec Management Console, on the Settings menu, click Agents/Plug-ins > Targeted Agent Settings.
- In the left pane, select the policy for which you want to configure the peer-to-peer downloading settings.
- In the right pane, on the Downloads tab, under Peer-to-peer Downloading Configuration Settings, configure the settings.
![P2P_1.png]()
Note that the default settings are suitable for most of the environments. However, if you notice too many direct downloads or long package delivery period, you may need to customize the settings. The settings for peer-to-peer downloading are as follows:Allow Symantec Management Agents to download packages from peer computers
Enables the peer-to-peer downloading functionality that allows the client computers to download packages from their peers.
Note that only the peer computers that are managed by the same Notification Server can download packages from each other.
TCP/UDP port
HTTP server listens to the TCP port. Peer discovery engine listens to the UDP port. The same port number is used for both.
HTTP request timeout
The period that the HTTP server should wait for the peer commands or file download requests from peer computers to arrive. If the request is not completed in a specified time, it is canceled with a timeout error.
Note that if the timeout period is short (5-10 seconds), the slower client computers may drop out of the DHT network.
Maximum bandwidth
The bandwidth of the network traffic that the HTTP server cannot exceed.
Maximum number of requests per core
The maximum number of simultaneous requests from the peer computers that the HTTP server can process.
Note that this setting is per CPU core. For example, if you enter 5 for this option, the computers with dual core processor will have a total limit of 10 requests.
Maximum number of connections
The maximum number of simultaneous connections that the HTTP server allows.
This option lets you limit the number of the client computers that can simultaneously connect to a peer.
Maximum log file size
A separate log file contains the information of the web requests that the HTTP server has served. You can specify the maximum size of this log file. When the size reaches its limit, a new file is created. The log files are stored in the Symantec Management Agent logs folder.
Peer announcement interval
A period after which Symantec Management Agent sends out a broadcast packet to its peers.
Unavailable peer timeout
A period after which a peer computer is considered as unavailable since it sends no broadcasts and does not answer to the requests.
Additional subnets to discover
Additional network segments for peer engine to discover.
Note that the peers try to connect directly to the added subnets. Add the subnets only if the communication between the network segments is expected. If you expect communication only between very specific set of subnets, create a dedicated Targeted Agent Settings policy with additional subnets and target it correspondingly.
Maximum number of peers per download attempt
The maximum number of peers from which the client computer tries to download the package.
Symantec suggests increasing this number if the computers often go offline.
Maximum download attempts per package
The maximum number of attempts to download a package using peer-to-peer downloading. Each attempt consists of selecting the specified number of peers and then attempting to download the package from each peer.
If all the attempts fail, the Package Delivery will download the package directly from the Package Server or Notification Server.
Period between download attempts
The interval of peer downloading attempts.
Note that the timeout period for peer downloading does not increase. When a client computer downloads a package from Notification Server or Package Server, the timeout period increases on each attempt.
- Click Save changes.
