Migrating to a new becaon

[joan_mckinley]

We are migrating to a new beacon and was told we could use a DNS alias or change a setting in the BeaconEngine.config.  The DNS alias isn't working for us so we are testing modifying BeaconEngine.config in C:\Program Files (x86)\Flexera Software\Inventory Beacon\DotNet\conf on the existing Beacon.  We added the server name (FQDN) of the new Beacon to networkName=""

It changed some settings in the registry on the clients when they check in but the inventory files are still going to the old server.  Not all the settings in the registry are getting updated in particular HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\ManageSoft Corp\ManageSoft\Common\DownloadSettings\Bootstrap Server 1 and HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\ManageSoft Corp\ManageSoft\Common\DownloadSettings\BeaconServer.  We can see in the tracker.log that is is uploading to the old server.

We used this technote: https://community.flexera.com/t5/FlexNet-Manager-Knowledge-Base/How-to-configure-the-beacon-to-use-a-different-name-or-alias/ta-p/2064

Not sure if there is anything else we need to do besides updating the BeaconEngine.config.

[AamerSharif]

Hi John,

After changing/updating beacon server name (FQDN) by adding value to networkName=<FQDN>, beacon will report back new FQDN to FNMS server. On next beacon policy update, newly added FQDN will be communicated to all the beacons and fail over settings package update will update the download and upload settings on the agent. 

If inventory agent have more than one beacon, inventory agent will automatically fail back to other beacon and get new fail over settings with the new FQDN.

If that is the only beacon agent can talk to, in that case agent need to talk to beacon using old FQDN to get latest policy with latest failover settings OR you can update upload and download settings (host) using other mechanism (manual/script).

Before you any of the above i would suggest to check beacon policy to make sure newly added FQDN is communicated to FNMS server and added to beacon policy. 

If beacon policy does not show expected FQDN for that beacon it mean it is not replicated yet. you can try updating beacon setting or restarting beacon engine service to make sure value get populated.

You can also check the value of HTTPAccessData in BEACON table in  compliance database.

Bootstrap location is populated when agent is installed it never get updated again. You like to update bootstrap location, you do using script as mentioned above. it would not stop inventory agent communication and inventory will automatically fall back to download location that is reachable.

HTH

Aamer

[joan_mckinley]

Thanks Aamer for the reply and the information.  Flexera helped us.  We did not realize we needed to update the BeaconEngine.config on the old beacon and new beacon.  Even after we did that we still had issues.

We discovered that some of our clients are working (sending inventory successfully to our new beacon instance).  So it is just some of our systems that are still reporting to the old FNMS server even though they have the new beacon information in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\ManageSoft Corp\ManageSoft\Common\DownloadSettings\{6a31f65a-1df0-4ce2-a229-2e148fd36df2} key.  It still had old information in this key:  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\ManageSoft Corp\ManageSoft\Common\DownloadSettings\BeaconServer

We wrote a script to update the BeaconServer key and when we apply that, the clients start sending inventory to the new beacon.

Thanks,

Joan