Understanding task throttling settings

[Palps 3]

Hi,

we are in the progress of updating our environment to v9 (ESET Endpoint Antvirus & ESET Server Security).
As most of our users are working via VPN from home I don't want to upgrade all 1200 clients at once so i had a look at throttling again (already haven't got it working some years ago).
We have tried many combinations now, but the task does never run. It only shows as planned task.
Can you help me configuring the following conditions:

• The task should run every 30 minutes, Monday - Friday between 08:00am and 6:00pm
• Only 50 clients should do the update at the same time.

I have tried the following CRON and the following settings:
0 0,30 8-18 ? * MON,TUE,WED,THU,FRI *

I don't get the time-based Criteria. Don't i specify the time-based Criteria already via the CRON job?

Thanks a lot for your help
Regards Palps

[MartinK 384]

On 5/24/2022 at 10:31 AM, Palps said:

I don't get the time-based Criteria. Don't i specify the time-based Criteria already via the CRON job?

Thanks a lot for your help
Regards Palps

Those are actually two different  configuration parameters:

• CRON devines when or how often will be task executed on client device
• Throttling defines limits for task execution, i.e. to prevent too often execution. It mostly makes sens for other then CRON triggers, i.e. for example execution based on dynamic group might result in unexpected number of executions.

In case of software installation task, scheduling based on CRON should be sufficient, or ASAP execution with random delay might be also easier, in case there is no need for some specific limits, like execution only outside of business hours, etc.

In case you consider CRON to be more suitable, I would recommend to check our special "R" character extension to it, which might help with randomization (see documentation: https://help.eset.com/protect_admin/90/en-US/cron_expression.html), as it is not possible to limit based on state of other devices, i.e. each device will be executing task independently. But with "R" you can statistically distribute execution in an interval. For example instead of splitting devices by specific hour of execution, you can use "R" which will randomize specific hour on device.

[Palps 3]

Hi @MartinK, thanks a lot for your response!

Haven't fully got it yet but figured out something working with your explanation about the "R" and the random delay interval. I have the following configured now:

CRON: 0 R 8-18 ? * MON,TUE,WED,THU,FRI *
Fires every hour, every weekday between 08am and 6pm at a random minute (at far as i got it right).

Together with a 5m Random Delay Interval and the must have time-based throttling criteria to execute at most once per 15 minutes it's going slowly but steady.

Assigned it to one of our dynamic groups, so that every client appearing in that group will get it (i know there is the "on group join").

Thanks for your support!