Renaming or Moving an Agent-Managed Computer

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When a computer being managed by a MOM agent is renamed (and rebooted) or moved to a different domain, you can expect the following results:

  • All data remains associated with the old computer name.

  • The renamed computer is no longer a member of any computer groups, with the following results:

    • Data about the computer is no longer shown in MOM Operator console views that are scoped by computer group.

    • Because reports are scoped by computer group, the computers previous name is not included in any reporting because that name is no longer part of any computer group. However, reporting will automatically begin using the new name of the computer.

You have two options to start managing the computer again, depending on whether "Reject new manual agent installations" is selected when configuring MOM agent installation. See Chapter 4 of the MOM 2005 Deployment Guide for additional information about agent installation.

Option 1: Reject new manual agent installations is selected

Note

This is the default MOM agent installation setting.

After the computer has been renamed you will see the following Alerts:

  • A manually installed agent connection has been refused

  • MOM Heartbeat failure summary

  • MOM Agent heartbeat failure

To start managing the computer again, you need to reinstall the MOM agent by performing the following steps:

  1. Delete the computer discovery rule for the previous name of this computer.

  2. In the MOM Administrator console details pane, expand Administration and then expand Computers.

  3. Navigate to Agent-managed Computers.

  4. Right-click the old name of the computer, and then select Force to Unmanaged Management Mode.

  5. Create a new computer discovery rule matching the new name.

  6. Navigate to and then right-click Computer Discovery Rules. Select Run Computer Discovery Now.

  7. Approve the agent for installation.

Note

If you are installing MOM agents across a firewall or overriding computer discovery rules by using a ManualMC.txt file, see either the "Deploying Agents Beyond Firewalls" section or the "Using the ManualMC.txt File" section in Chapter 7 "Deploying MOM 2005 in Advanced Environments" of the Microsoft Operations Manager 2005 Deployment Guide. You may also want to use the Delete option from the Unmanaged Computers view to remove the old computer name and data from the MOM database.

Option 2: Reject new manual agent installations is not selected

In this case, re-installing the MOM agent on the renamed computer is not required.

After the computer has been renamed, you will see the following Alerts:

  • The MOM Server received data that does not match the MOM Agent identifier

  • MOM Agent heartbeat failure

  • MOM Heartbeat failure summary

To start managing the computer again, you can either follow the steps above for installing the MOM agent or, if you do not want to re-install the agent, perform the following steps:

  1. Delete the old computer discovery rule for the renamed computer.

  2. From the MOM Administrator console, navigate to Agent-managed Computers and then click Force to Unmanaged Management Mode for the computer.

  3. Stop the MOM service on the computer that was renamed.

  4. Delete the following file: %systemdrive%\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\Microsoft Operations Manager\<Management Group Name>\ConfigCache.

  5. Start the MOM service on the renamed computer.

  6. From the MOM Administrator console, navigate to Administration, Computers, Pending Actions and approve the renamed computer.

Tip

You may also want to use the Delete option from the Unmanaged Computers view to remove the old computer name and data from the MOM database.

For more information about installing and uninstalling agent computers, see Chapter 4, "Discovering Computers and Deploying MOM Agents," and Chapter 7, "Deploying MOM 2005 in Advanced Environments" of the Microsoft Operations Manager 2005 Deployment Guide.