Ok so up until this point I had not really attempted to run dSS on a Server.
I'm finding it to be a bit rough going, and I'm really not sure that I will be able to use it the way I want to. Here is why.
Nick pointed out in this thread, and here, that there are a few known issues with running on a Server.
The first I ran into was that whoops I hadn't actually configured my custom apps properly!
Error level 256 as Nick states, usually occurs when your custom apps are not configured to run on a Server platform. Ok got that fixed.
The second issue I ran into was that many of my custom apps download via Internet Explorer. Most Servers have IE ESC enabled.
Now I will admit Servers are not my thing. That being said here is what I have found about IE ESC.
This guy's post suggests that most admin's don't suggest allowing Admin access to a browser on your Server (makes sense right), but that if you do want to be able to use IE easier there are a few ways to disable IE ESC, as listed in his post here.
Now I am of the opinion that I do not want anyone using a browser on the Servers I manage. I also don't want to open up a hole in security, just to allow dSS to possibly patch another hole. So what to do??
I already know my customer doesn't want to spend/is not able to spend more money on another service, so I can't change to another application for patching and reporting.
I'm not sure how to configure dSS to circumvent issues with IE ESC while it's enabled to allow it to download properly. I am going to have to assume here that I would have to whitelist all of the download locations for my custom apps, add firewall exclusions, and change group policy.
Does anyone have suggestions?