My little news about updating in a perso LAN

[cooldiode]

Hello,

This to relate my last tries to make Avast! update on stations located in a small perso LAN, through a proxy PC with dial on demand...

1) Let Avast! automatically connect every 4 hours is not possible because 2 machines doing so for only 8 mn every 4 hours leads to consuming a 50h monthly subscription;
2) So I tried to disable both "use a modem" and "permanently connected" hints on the stations, so that they automatically try every 40s and succeede only when a wanted connection occurs. This ALSO FAILS because most of software proxies don't route ICMP packets, and so don't allow Avast! to ping its server;
3) So what is left is to manually update every station when the proxy (which is watching the modem) tells it has found new data  :'(

Sad but true I'm afraid...
Maybe will I find another way to test if a connection exists, without forcing it...

Greetings,
CD

[Eddy]

1) Let Avast! automatically connect every 4 hours is not possible

Depends. Avast checks for updates as soon as a connection is made. After that every 4 hours. But only if the connection stays open. If not, Avast will check again on the next connection. So your calculation is totally wrong.

Only thing you have to do is setup your network correctly so that Avast works on every comp, or use the network edition.

[kubecj]

You may also running mirroring tool (aimed for PRO/server edition users) on the proxy PC and let the client PCs update from it.

[Lisandro]

You may also running mirroring tool (aimed for PRO/server edition users) on the proxy PC and let the client PCs update from it.

Kubecj, which folders (or files) should be mirrowed?  

[kubecj]

Technical, there is a tool which does all the necessary tasks for you without needing to know all those unnecessary details  

It's aimed for PRO/Server users for distribution of iAVS files in small networks. For larger networks, use ADNM which has this mirroring built-in and can distribute the setup on the clients automatically.

[Lisandro]

Thanks Kubecj... just trying to learn 'unnecessary' things  

[cooldiode]

Hello.

Thank you for the precision, sorry if I did not understand something, be sure I try !

I just tried to turn auto-updates ON on a station, (that is connecting to Internet through the proxy PC with dial-on-demand).

Then I had to wait for new updates being available. When connecting to Internet from the station (for e-mails), I could hear Avast on the proxy PC announcing it had updated. Then I kept online for 1 hour to let Avast on the station at least 40 mn to find out a connection was done.

It did not. So I had to make it update manually.

This may be explained as the proxy does not route ICMP packets, so does not allow to ping on Internet from the LAN.  

So Avast on the station was unable to detect the connection.

Then if I configure it as "permanently connected", what I understood is that it will try to download every (4h ?). But in this case this will always succeed since the proxy dials on demand.
... What leads to my apparently wrong calculation on the sum of connected time.

Where am I wrong precisely please ?  

Must I really get the network edition ? I will accept to pay a correct price, but only when I am sure that all my LAN works correctly with all these tricky applications I must stack.

Thank you,

PS: Any news from the mirrorring solution ? I found a freeware named FolderClone...

CD

[Eddy]

Where am I wrong precisely please ? 1) Let Avast! automatically connect every 4 hours is not possible because 2 machines doing so for only 8 mn every 4 hours leads to consuming a 50h monthly subscription;

That is where you go wrong. Avast does not connect every 4 hours. It only checks when a connection is made. It does NOT make the connection itself. EG: If you do not connect for over a month, you won't have any (extra) costs.

Avast checks every 4 hours after the connection is made, but only if the connection is open for 4 hours or longer. Again, Avast does NOT connect by itself.

For the other thing. What os is on the server?

[cooldiode]

Hello.

Thank you Eddy, this time I've understood :
- so if I configure Avast! to auto-update on a station and tell it the station is "permanently connected", it will only try to reach the download servers when a connection occurs.

I will try again to see whether it can do it even when its ping is not routed by the proxy.

My system currently is Win2000 Pro on both proxy and station. The proxy is a freeware named FreeProxy (but I found notes telling that most of software proxies do not route ICMP).

Greetings,

CD

[Eddy]

so if I configure Avast! to auto-update on a station and tell it the station is "permanently connected", it will only try to reach the download servers when a connection occurs.

No, since you have dial in you are NOT permanently connected.

[cooldiode]

Hello Eddy (and Everybody else),

Several days again waiting for several times new updates being available. Sorry to insist, but this leads back to what I had found at the beginning :
- since there is a modem to detect on the proxy PC, not on the client station,
- since the proxy PC does dial-on-demand indistinctly for any Internet access query from the station,
- since the proxy PC has Windows auto-dial disabled, only the proxy software can dial on a query from another station only,

So:

= on the proxy PC:
- auto-update is enabled, but since Avast! cannot force to dial, its correctly waits for a connection to be open, then it pings its server and maybe updates. That's fine.

= on the station:
- auto-update is enabled, and depending on the "permanently connected" setting, two cases may occur:
- - if not checked, Avast! never detects that a connection is open, probably because it cannot ping outside, and so it never updates as the proxy PC does, anytime the connection could keep alive (I waited for much more than 40mn),
- - if checked, Avast! queries the proxy PC and gets connected immediately then at every session opening (I suppose when the systray component starts). So I must conclude that it has no need to detect a connection since it is able to connect whenever it wants.

So maybe what you said is what it should do, but what I say is what it actually does in such a configuration.

Misc topic:
Also, I wonder if it coudn't be safer if the Avast! service was able to start with a high priority (as my firewall does), since currently its icon in the systray is the last one to appear (after Money and other less important services). I will try to change this order by hand from the registry as I'm able to do it, but it would be nice it Avast! could do it by itself on installing (suggestion to evaluate).

Greetings.

CD