Clients in System Center 2012 Configuration Manager must locate a management point during site assignment and as an on-going process to remain managed. Active Directory Domain Services provides the most secure method for clients on the intranet to find management points. However, if clients cannot use this service location method (for example, you have not extended the Active Directory schema, or clients are from a workgroup), use DNS publishing as the preferred alternative service location method.

Note
For Configuration Manager SP1 only: When you install the client for Linux and UNIX, you must specify a management point to use as an initial point of contact. For information about how to install the client for Linux and UNIX, see the Install the Client on Linux and UNIX Servers section in the How to Install Clients on Linux and UNIX Computers in Configuration Manager topic.

Before you configure clients to find management points by using DNS publishing, make sure that DNS servers on the intranet have service location resource records (SRV RR) and corresponding host (A or AAA) resource records for the site's management points. The service location resource records can be created automatically by Configuration Manager or manually, by the DNS administrator who creates the records in DNS.

For more information about DNS publishing as a service location method for Configuration Manager clients, see the Planning for Service Location by Clients section in the Planning for Communications in Configuration Manager topic.

You can configure clients to find management points by using DNS publishing either during or after client installation:

To configure clients to find management points by using DNS publishing during client installation

  • Install the client with the following CCMSetup Client.msi properties:

    • DNSSUFFIX=<management point domain>

      If the site has more than one management point and they are in more than one domain, specify just one domain. When clients connect to a management point in this domain, they download a list of available management points, which will include the management points from the other domains.

    • SMSSITECODE=<site code of client's assigned site>

      You cannot use automatic site assignment when you configure clients to find management points in DNS, but must directly assign them to a site.

    For more information about the CCMSetup command-line properties, see About Client Installation Properties in Configuration Manager.

To configure clients to find management points by using DNS publishing after client installation

  1. In Control Panel of the client computer, navigate to Configuration Manager, and then double-click Properties.

  2. On the Site tab, specify the DNS suffix of the management points, and then click OK.

    If the site has more than one management point and they are in more than one domain, specify just one domain. When clients connect to a management point in this domain, they download a list of available management points, which will include the management points from the other domains.

See Also