cleaning up Forefront definition updates
Anyone using SCCM and Forefront Client Security? If so, then you probably have an auto-approve rule in WSUS for your definition files and therefore have these files automatically downloaded to your server. Seen the amount of definition files that are released, you could notice that these files begin to consume a significant amount of disk space and, as in my case, could run into disk space problems if not adequately monitored. Therefore I needed to get these files cleaned up to free up some disk space.
Cleaning up these definition files and freeing up disk space can be done trough the ‘Cleanup Wizard’ in your WSUS console. Normally you would manage your updates trough the SCCM console but the difference is that, by creating this auto-approve rule for definition files, these ‘updates’ are managed by your underlying WSUS infrastructure and not your SCCM infrastructure which you would use for other updates (Windows updates, etc.)
The first time I ran the Cleanup Wizard, this would appear to go in a state of not responding and finally freeze up. These was because it was the first time I ran the wizard and has selected all different tasks…
It is better to perform these tasks individually and in certain order, the first time you run the cleanup wizard. I performed them in the following order:
- I first selected the two bottom options where you decline certain updates
- Then the first option, deleting unused updates and update revisions
- To end with the third option where unnneeded updates are deleted
If like me, you want to schedule this cleanup to run every month or so, you can do this by using the following tool: http://wsus.codeplex.com/releases/view/17612. The tool provides you with an executable, help file and an sql file. Considering the arguments you pass in your command, you can perform the several cleanup tasks as you find in the cleanup wizard of WSUS and perform a database maintenance. All arguments and command line option can be found in the help file, I found it very useful.
Grtz,
Steve.