Endpoint Protection

I would like to change the IP address of my SEPM server. I have 300+ clients so I wanted to check with this forum before making the change.

Will changing the ip address of the server break any communication between the server and the agents?

Thank you

Hello,

Usually, The IP address has to be static on the Machine on which the SEPM is installed.

So, if you are changing the IP address, the communication would surely break.

However, you could get those Clients by Replacing the Sylink file back on those client machines with the help of SylinkReplacer Utility.

Now, since you are carrying SEP 12.1, you may have contact Symantec Technical Support to get the SylinkReplacer Utility for SEP version 12.1

Hope that helps!!

Yes you can change the IP address of the SEPM server without breaking communication between the Clients and SEPM.

In Theory : You need to tell the clients whom to contact if current IP is not available.

So Add a new Management Server List.

Priority1

Current IP:port

CurrentName:port

New IP:Port

assign the package to all the groups.

Change the communication setting to Push mode so that the clients receive the new policy asap.

You can wait for a day so that if any client is not in office will connect the next day and get the policy.

Then you can change the SEPM IP, Reboot the server and everything will be normal.

Again if client can resolve the hostname then even if they don't receive the new policy they will be able to connect using hostname.

Vikram thank you for the quick reply. I will test out your procedure and let you know.

Vikram

I may not have been completely transparent about the process. Currently I cannot log into my sepm server and now none of the agents are communicating with the server! oops.

What I did and hope you know how to resolve is make a new management list exactly as the old management list was configured. However I added the new IP address to the list and put it on the top of the managment server list. However the current IP and the computername were listed in the list as well. I reassigned all agents to this new policy on Friday. Just now getting back on site and see the results.

I had not intended to change the IP address of the server until tomorrow night. What I was thinking was that I could have both the current and new IP address in the mngt server list. If communication to one ip failed the other would be tried next. Not the case?

Please inform me how to resolve asap. Thank you.

One of the first things I do when I set up my new SEP 12 environment was create a new management server list with the DNS name only of the SEPM servers in use.  That way, you can change the IP address as much as you would like (don't know why you would) but the clients will rely on the DNS name for server communication.  As long as your DNS is updated after the IP address change, the clients will be fine.  If you have a unstable DNS environment or don't host your own DNS server, may not be a good idea though but for us it works well.

Well..First you need to see why you can't log into your SEPM. Once you are able to login to SEPM everything should work fine.

Have you tried Restarting SEPM and database services ?

Vikram

I did restart the services and this allowed me to log into the SEPM console. I did not have time to troubleshoot yesterday so I reassigned everyone back to the orginal mngt server list for now. Will be back on site to work on this later this morning.

Ok. So lets break it down to figure out where I went wrong.

What I current have in place that is working and was created by default with the install is below.

10.x.x.119:8014
169.254.172.17:8014
192.168.56.1:8014
hostname:8014
hostname.domainname.local:8014

The mngt server list that I created and caused the agents to stop talking to the server was as follows

10.x.x.114:8014
10.x.x.119:8014
169.254.172.17:8014
192.168.56.1:8014
hostname:8014
hostname.domainname.local:8014

Note that I am wanting to change my IP address from 119 to 114. (If interested I'm doing this to move my current DNS server to a different location and make this server the new DNS server. Unfortunately with this environment 300 computers are all statically configured to thier IP address and DNS.)

So as you can see above I created the new mgnt server list exactly as the default list with the exception of the .114 ip address. My reasoning being that I would put the .114 ip address in all the agents policies so that when I did change the server ip to .114 it would be seamless to the agents.

I'm going to do some troubleshooting on my own but if someone can point me in the right direction that would be great too. Thank you.
 

put 114 below 119. Then assign the policy.since you have FQDN added so no need for hostname:8014.

Once you assign this MSL nothing will change however clients will have their sylink updated with new IP address.

After clients get updated with policy.

Change the IP address and reboot the server.

Done.

I've gone ahead and reassigned this new MSL to all of my agents. How long do you think I need to wait until I can change my IP address? Is there a way to verify that the agent has recieved its new sylink info?

Thanks again

Right Click on My Company -- Run Command on Group --Update Content.

Wait to 30 mins or so.

to verify if clients have got the updated sylink.

Edit sylink.xml on any client and you will find new IP address listed there with all the other ones.

Once done change IP and reboot the server.

Once all your clients have the updated policy with these changes then you can safely change the IP address of your SEPM.  You can check if the clients have the updated policy by running the "Clients With Latest Policy" report.

Here is how you can run the report:

1. Go to the "Reports" panel.

2. Select "Computer Status" from the Report type list.

3. Select "Clients With Latest Policy" from the Select a report list.

Followed Vikrams instructions and everything is running smooth after the ip addres change.