Prevent Chocolatey Rate Limiting in JumpCloud

JumpCloud uses Chocolatey to facilitate its Software Management features. By default, packages will be pulled from the Chocolatey Community Package Repository. Chocolatey packages are rate limited at 20 packages per minute per IP address. If you exceed that limit, your IP will be temporarily banned for one hour. For more information, see Chocolatey’s documentation on excessive use and rate limiting. 

How to Determine if Your Software Downloads were Rate Limited

When your org exceeds the rate limit for a certain software package, you will see an “Install Failed” status for software packages in the Software Management section of the Admin Console. This status only appears for software packages that have not yet been installed and fail or packages that attempt to update and fail. It will not appear for previous installed software. In the event that you get an “Install Failed” status, you must view the software details. If the install failed due to rate limiting, you will see the following message: “Software failed to install or update because of Chocolatey rate limiting.”

 To view the status of your software package:

1. Navigate to your Admin Console: http://console.jumpcloud.com
2. Navigate to DEVICE MANAGEMENT > Software Management.
3. Click the name of the software.
4. Select the Status tab in the window that appears. 
5. If you see “Install Failed,” click view to see detailed information on the software package. 

If Chocolatey’s rate limiting is affecting your solution, the workaround is to create an Internal Software Repository to cache packages in the Chocolatey’s community package repository. Then set the custom repository URL in each of your package configurations to install packages from your internal repository.

Create an Internal Software Repository

Internal Software Repositories are servers that your organization deploys and configures. They serve two major purposes:

• Cache Chocolatey Community Packages. This can be used to address rate limiting.
• Store custom software packages that the organization creates.

If you’re unsure if an internal software repository is right for your org, see Chocolatey’s documentation for a breakdown of the pros and cons of the solution. 

Using an internal repository can solve the rate limiting issue by acting as a proxy and cache. There many repositories that can be used, Chocolatey recommends these three repositories for organization use:

• ProGet
• Sonotype Nexus
• Artifactory

Of those three, JumpCloud recommends Nexus and ProGet. 

ProGet

ProGet is one of the repositories you can use for your internal software repository. For resources on configuring a ProGet repository, see the following:

• Download and pricing information
• Documentation for installing in a variety of environments
• Configuring ProGet for Chocolatey

Note: Enabling Allow Anonymous Access is necessary to use JumpCloud's Software Management features.

Sonotype Nexus 

Sonotype Nexus is one of the repositories you can use for your internal software repository. 
For resources to configure a Sonotype Nexus repository, see the following: 

• Nexus installation instructions for Unix, Windows, Docker, and AWS
• NuGet Proxy Repositories

Note: Enabling Allow Anonymous Access is necessary to use JumpCloud's Software Management features.

Artifactory

Artifactory is a paid repository software. For resources to configure an Artifactory repository, see:

• Pricing
• Installation documentation
• NuGet Repositories are used to support Chocolatey, and configuring one in Artifactory will create both a proxy to Chocolatey Community Repository and an internal repository by default.