Beacon migration

[tallal85]

Hi,

Does anyone know how to migrate a Win2012 beacon to Win2016 without losing the rules we created on the old beacon?

We have migrated all the platform and that we only have the beacons to migrate.

Regards,

[SNeddermeyer · Accepted solution]

Hi tallal85,
as far as i know there is no possibility to move all local changes from one server to another. Basically rules were created in the WebUI of FNMS and forwarded to the beacon via policy. If you talking about moving your prepared adapters from the "Inventory Systems" Tab to another Beacon i guess there is no such an option.
You´ll need to recreate them step by step on the new Beacon.

Edit: i was checking that with "erwin_lindemann" in our test environment. We found out that you can copy all configured adapter in the C:\ProgramData\Flexera Software\Beacon\config.xml to your new Beacon installation.

[JJacildo · Accepted solution]

Hello @tallal85 , you will have to fresh install the FlexNet Inventory Beacon on your new Windows Server. However, you can retain information such the Inventory Adapter, Business Adapter, and schedules you have configured from your old server to this new server. You will just need to get copies of the following files:

Within C:\ProgramData\Flexera Software\Beacon

• config.xml
• schedule.xml
• BusinessAdapter folder

Once you installed the Beacon on the new server, you can just put the following files and folder into the same spot and that should retain the configurations from your old server.

I hope that helps.

[SNeddermeyer · Accepted solution]

Hi tallal85,
as far as i know there is no possibility to move all local changes from one server to another. Basically rules were created in the WebUI of FNMS and forwarded to the beacon via policy. If you talking about moving your prepared adapters from the "Inventory Systems" Tab to another Beacon i guess there is no such an option.
You´ll need to recreate them step by step on the new Beacon.

Edit: i was checking that with "erwin_lindemann" in our test environment. We found out that you can copy all configured adapter in the C:\ProgramData\Flexera Software\Beacon\config.xml to your new Beacon installation.

[MWuendisch]

WHAT IS RIGHT AND WHAT IS WRONG? @ChrisG told us ‎Jun 13, 2023 05:41 AM  that this is not possible orr a part of the copy process is not possible. Could somebody explain the deeper details? M.W.

[ChrisG]

I'm not sure specifically what you are referring to here, but in summary:

• It is possible to copy various unencrypted configuration details from one beacon to another as noted by others in this thread.
• It is not possible to copy encrypted data from one beacon to another.

[MWuendisch]

Thanks Chris, sorry for newbie questions. Now I understand. It is possible to copy the files, but after that I have to go in the password manager and type in all the credentials again. Not sure if this is best practice in the scene, so thats why I asked for "explaining the tasks", but now I understand. Thanks again. Regards Mathias 

[JJacildo · Accepted solution]

Hello @tallal85 , you will have to fresh install the FlexNet Inventory Beacon on your new Windows Server. However, you can retain information such the Inventory Adapter, Business Adapter, and schedules you have configured from your old server to this new server. You will just need to get copies of the following files:

Within C:\ProgramData\Flexera Software\Beacon

• config.xml
• schedule.xml
• BusinessAdapter folder

Once you installed the Beacon on the new server, you can just put the following files and folder into the same spot and that should retain the configurations from your old server.

I hope that helps.

[ChrisG · Accepted solution]

Also be aware that the details such as the following are encrypted on each beacon and cannot be copied to another beacon:

• Encrypted connection strings configured in business connectors
• Passwords configured for inventory connections
• Passwords configured in the password store

[Andrei_ABB]

Hi Chris, 

Is there any way to avoid having to reconfigure all the passwords in the password manager again after moving the beacon? We are being constrained by security to move beacons to a different drive and we have over 30 different passwords configured on one of them. 

Regards,

Andrei

[ChrisG]

For security, password details are encrypted on each beacon in such a way that they cannot be copied to be decrypted on any other computer.

[Andrei_ABB]

Thank you for the quick response. I was expecting that but I was hoping to be wrong.

Regards,

Andrei

[Woo_Lam]

Wii this work if we shutdown the  Win2012 beacon and change the IP and name on Win2016 to be same as Win2012 beacon? What other steps we need to perform so that the current agents reporting to Win2012 beacon will also work on Win2016 beacon?