So this only happens with an UPGRADE from 2003 to 2008 correct?  We are 
installing on a fresh server with 2008....(Windows)

Lisa
-----Original Message-----
From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) 
[mailto:arsl...@arslist.org] On Behalf Of strauss
Sent: Monday, December 13, 2010 5:29 PM
To: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG
Subject: Re: ARS 7.6.03 Licensing on Windows Server 2008 R2

I started out testing 7.5 on 2008 R2 and there just seemed to be too many 
random permissions issues with the ARS and applications installers.  I don't 
think they were designed to run on 2008 and they worked better on 2003.  The 
7.5 licensing problem, however, was completely different and fixable as I 
recall. The support tech working my issue now is the same one I reported the 
problem with 7.5 to, something like a year ago.  Anyway, I reverted the servers 
to 2003 and had far less problems, and then upgraded ARS/ITSM when 7.6.03 came 
out but remained on 2003 (always Enterprise x64 - some were R2 in my server 
group tests).

Since the 7.6.03 Stack Installer came out exclusively for 2008 R2, I _assumed_ 
that 7.6.03 had been developed and tested on 2008 R2, not 2003, and that it 
would be safe to move the servers to 2008 R2 (the SQL Server has remained on 
2008 throughout all of this).  Either I was mistaken, or the problem I am 
seeing is unique to Dell hardware (all previous and current production is on HP 
servers) and only under 2008 R2, not 2003.  I figure that there will be a lot 
of finger pointing (Dell versus Microsoft versus BMC) as to who the real 
culprit is here, so 'since ARS 7.6.03 does not properly support 2008 R2' may be 
too broad a statement; you may have no problem at all on different hardware, 
especially if Windows has identified the NICs in the same order as the BIOS.  I 
do have one 2008 R2 server where that did happen, and the snmp.exe utility used 
by ARS 7.6.03 appears to select the correct NIC, but of course that was the box 
I had spec'd out for mid-tier, not one of the ARS servers... they are both 
wrong.

Again, you may be fine, but this looks like a mouse trap where you could 
install and license 7.6.03 on a 2003 server, and if you upgraded the server OS 
later to 2008 R2 (something I NEVER do - I build them fresh every time) the 
license could conceivably stop working without any other factor changing.  That 
is basically what has happened to me, although the ARS is a new install of 
exactly the same distribution on the same machine, with ONLY the OS changing.

Christopher Strauss, Ph.D.
Call Tracking Administration Manager
University of North Texas Computing & IT Center http://itsm.unt.edu/

-----Original Message-----
From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) 
[mailto:arsl...@arslist.org] On Behalf Of LJ LongWing
Sent: Monday, December 13, 2010 4:04 PM
To: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG
Subject: Re: ARS 7.6.03 Licensing on Windows Server 2008 R2

Christopher,
I'm going to take a small piece of what you just said and ask you to elaborate 
on it

'since ARS 7.6.03 does not properly support 2008 R2'

What's not supported?...and should I avoid going to 2008 R2 on 7.5 as well?

-----Original Message-----
From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) 
[mailto:arsl...@arslist.org] On Behalf Of strauss
Sent: Monday, December 13, 2010 2:50 PM
To: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG
Subject: ARS 7.6.03 Licensing on Windows Server 2008 R2

Just a heads up for anyone out there contemplating moving their OS from 2003 to 
2008 to host a 7.6.03 AR Server.  You may not be able to license the server on 
2008 R2 due to an error in the snmp.exe program that ARS uses to "locate" the 
active NIC and MAC address for licensing.  This is on Dell
(ack) servers and may not apply to other hardware, but on ANY hardware our 
practice has been to locate the NIC #1 in the BIOS (of the 4 built in NICs - 
and that would also be the first MAC address in hex order) and register that 
MAC address in DNS and generate our ARS Server license key for that address.
Note that Windows 2003 and 2008 don't always name the #1 NIC in the BIOS as the 
Lan#1 or the Adapter #1 - we have examples of NIC#1 being called LAN1 and 
Adapter1 by the OS, and others where it is LAN2 and Adapter2, and LAN3 and 
Adapter4; the latter two servers WERE supposed to become a licensed server 
group!  It should not matter - we DISABLE all other NICs in the OS.
Running ipconfig /all displays ONLY the NIC that we have set as active.
BTW, disabling the NIC at the hardware level does not help, and on a *&^%$ Dell 
you can only disable them in pairs, and the error appears to occur within the 
first pair anyway.

When the machines are Windows Server 2003, the snmp.exe runs and displays ONLY 
the ACTIVE NIC, no matter what the OS has named it.  There had never been a 
problem with licensing in 7.6.03 on Win 2003 during months of testing (you may 
recall that in 7.5 it was generating a random number and displaying it in the 
Licensing form, and you had to ignore it and use the MAC address from ipconfig 
/all).  When we reinstalled the OS as 2008 R2, the same 7.6.03 snmp.exe now 
displays a whole slew of entries, and the first NIC entry listed is taken as 
the MAC address to be used for licensing; in 4 out of 5 servers, that is NOT 
NIC#1, and therefore is NOT the MAC address we registered in DNS, nor the one 
we generated ARS licenses for, nor the LAN connection that is active for the 
server.  Support is just now starting to understand that there is a problem, so 
I have no idea what the resolution will be.  Until then I am completely stalled 
(again); options are to go back to Windows Server 2003 since ARS 7.6.03 does 
not properly support 2008 R2; license the server against the NIC 7.6.03 wants 
to use, even though it is NOT the NIC the server uses for DNS and to connect to 
the network (bound to break some other BMC component), or completely re-work 
the server's registration in DNS, AD, etc. with whatever random MAC that ARS 
7.6.03 is "selecting" with the snmp.exe utility even though it would NOT be the 
#1 NIC on the hardware.. in the BIOS.

It's always something silly, isn't it?

Christopher Strauss, Ph.D.
Call Tracking Administration Manager
University of North Texas Computing & IT Center http://itsm.unt.edu/

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