Notes from the Field: SCCM vs Antivirus

Solution

We found out that Symantec Endpoint Protection (SEP) on the Hyper-V host is preventing the DP site role installation.

Problem

I was at one client last month to deploy a SCCM 2012 R2 and spent sometime troubleshooting why “Distribution Manager failed to install distribution point“.

Log

“Error   Milestone            PS1         2/12/2015 1:22:54 PM    CMSP01               SMS_DISTRIBUTION_MANAGER              2370                Distribution Manager failed to install distribution point [“”Display=\\DSV01\””]MSWNET:[“”SMS_SITE=PS1″”]\\DSV01\ on computer DSV01.    Possible cause: Distribution Manager does not have sufficient rights to the computer.  Solution: Verify that the site server computer account is an administrator on the distribution point computer.”

“Error    Milestone            PS1         2/12/2015 1:22:54 PM    CMSP01               SMS_DISTRIBUTION_MANAGER              2391                Distribution Manager failed to connect to the distribution point [“”Display=\\DSV01\””]MSWNET:[“”SMS_SITE=PS1″”]\\DSV01\. Check your network and firewall settings.”

Scenario

• Primary site: Windows Firewall and SEP are disabled.
• Site Server with Distribution Point Role: No Windows Firewall and SEP.
• Primary site server is already a member of the local administrators group of the Site Server.
• We are able to connect from the Primary Site to the DP using Wbemtest

We were only given access to the Distribution Point server so we didn’t know that there was SEP in the Hyper-V host so make sure you better work with the AV guys to allow SCCM in the environment you are working with.

After that, we were able to successfully deployed the Distribution Point.

Best thing to go through the Anti-virus scan exclusions for Configuration Manager 2012, reference links here:

• http://configmgrblog.com/2012/05/09/anti-virus-scan-exclusions-for-configuration-manager-2012/
• http://blogs.technet.com/b/systemcenterpfe/archive/2012/11/29/system-center-2012-configuration-manager-antivirus-exclusions.aspx

Hope this helps someone who’s encountering the same issue.