Troubleshooting Provisioning Template Action Handlers

Description

This document is intended to explain provisioning action handlers so that failures seen in individual actions within a provisioning template can quickly be found and corrected.

Core Logs

Logs on the core will help with why a task is not starting, but do not provide a lot of detail about why a certain action failed. The core logs are found at ManagementSuite\logs\prov_schedule.exe.log and ManagementSuite\logs\provisioning\provisioning.log.

Client Logs

Device logs can be found either at x:\ldprovision or at systemdrive:\windows\temp.

Understanding Action Handler Flow (Client)

Each action that is run in a provisioning template is done by an action handler. A action handler may launch multiple other action handlers as part of its task. These other tasks could be considered to be child actions. The deploy image action in 9.5 and higher is an example of this. The deploy image action hander may automatically download the appropriate tool for imaging using a download action handler. The deploy image action then maps a drive to the network location where the image file is using the MaptoPreferred action handler. Finally it will complete its own job of deploying the image using itself. The launch of each of the addition action handler used by deploy image will be logged in the DeployImageHandler.log along with the result code from the additional handler.

This sample DeployImageHandler.log shows the launch of two additional action handlers (DownloadHandler.exe and maptopreferredhandler) as well as the exit codes for those handlers.

ExecuteCmd DownloadHandler.exe /source="http://mycore/ldlogon/provisioning/windows/imagew.exe" /dest="x:\ldprovision\imagew.exe"

created process, file handle 60 with non-readonly parameter

Process Exit Code: 0

Verifying file was successfully downloaded.

The file (x:\ldprovision\imagew.exe) was successfully downloaded

Getting free drive letter

Free drive letter: f

ExecuteCmd maptopreferredhandler.exe /path="\\mycore\images\win7.tbi" /driveletter=f /pathisfile

created process, file handle 68 with non-readonly parameter

Process Exit Code: 0

 

If a failure occurred in either of the additonal actions (DownloadHandler and maptopreferredhandler) launched by deployimage the errors would be shown in the DeployImageHandler.log with a corresponding exit code. Zero indicates the task succeeded. If a failure occurred the DeployImageHandler.log may not contain enough detail to determine the root cause of the failure. Instead the log from the additional action handler (DownloadHandler.log or maptopreferredhandler.log) should be reviewed. The additional action handler may even launch its own child handlers before returning so those logs may also need to be reviewed.

If the failure seen in the DeployImageHandler.log was an error mapping the drive to the image, the MaptoPreferredHandler.log would provide additional details about the failure. Sometimes the error will be spelled out. Other times only an error code will be shown. The error codes shown will often correspond to the windows error codes listed at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms681381(v=vs.85).aspx. This allows a simple lookup to get additional information about the failure. Viewing the primary action handler log and following the failure through to the action handler log where the failure actually occurred will save time and frustration while troubleshooting provisioning templates.

Action Handler Logs