Overview

Default beacon behavior is to record beacon hostname details in agent policy to be used by FlexNet Inventory Agent processes when making a connection to the beacon. However for production deployments it is good practice to configure agents to use a DNS CNAME (alias) record that maps to the appropriate IP address for communicating with beacons. Configuring a DNS CNAME record for each beacon in this way simplifies certificate management, communication through a reverse proxy, disaster recovery, migration, and rebuilding compromised servers.

This article describes how to set the NetworkName setting in the C:\Program Files\Flexera Software\Inventory Beacon\DotNet\conf\BeaconEngine.config file to achieve this.

Configuration steps

Complete the following steps to configure the name that is included in agent policies for communicating with a beacon:

1. Configure a DNS CNAME (alias) record that can be resolved by all devices that may need to communicate with the beacon to point to the appropriate IP address. This may be the IP address of the beacon itself, or a device such as a reverse proxy if network traffic is to be routed through such a device.
2. Use a text editor to edit the following file on the beacon: C:\Program Files\Flexera Software\Inventory Beacon\DotNet\conf\BeaconEngine.config (adjust the path as necessary if the installation directory of the beacon software is different).
3. Modify the networkName property contained within the BeaconEngine.config file to use the DNS CNAME that has been configured.
4. Save the file. Optionally, restart the FlexNet Beacon Engine service to have the beacon pick up the change immediately rather than waiting for it to be picked up according to a built-in setting refresh schedule.

Here is an example of how the networkName setting appears in the BeaconEngine.config file:

<beaconCommonSettings [...] networkName="MyServer.MyDomain.com" [...] />

Additional Information

See the following page for additional information about beacon configuration:

• Adjusting the Web Server on the Inventory Beacon