A customer of mine runs AutoCAD, and the licensing runs on a server (PC with AutoCAD fires up the app, the app looks to a server for a running license service and checks out a license. I install it on PC and set up license server (we'll call it AutoCADServer) and works peachy for months. Until today.
AutoCADServer does DNS, DHCP, file server (for everyone) and print server (for Win7 machines only at the moment). TheOtherServer in the same building is an older machine and is a Domain Controller and print server for about 10 XP machines but not much else. I am going to decommission TheOtherServer, but one step at a time so I DCPROMO it last Thursday. See any correlation with DCPROMO and the AutoCAD PC or the license service on AutoCADServer? Me either. I am onsite Friday AM to make sure there are no problems logging in or printing and all is reported cool. (well, I did have to reauthorize the DHCP server) Did I mention the one AutoCAD users is on vacation this day? That's OK I didn't know either, but I figured it didn't matter since I'm not touching that server. Today I am onsite and the AutoCAD guy says he can't use AutoCAD. I check it out and I get a "Cannot get license from license server". Okay fine, I check out the FlexLM service diagnostics on AutoCADLicense and it says all good. Hit AutoDesk forums and they point me to log files to check out. Log files say "Server node is down or not responding". I do the usual restart services check the firewall settings etc on the server. No change. The support forums (AutoDesk, IBM, ESRI and all sorts of vendors use the FlexLM license service) *ALL* point to firewall or connectivity issues . I turn off the firewall on the PC. No change. Off on the server. No change. You probably all know Win7 has 3 kinds of network places: Domain, home and public. Guess what? Somehow the AutoCAD PC decided it's local network connection is now "Public" instead of "Work". Firewall settings are completely different for those areas, and once I change the network to think it's back on the work LAN, poof, the firewall GPO's properly take effect and all is good. I never touched the AutoCAD PC, and the users aren't local admins on their box so they can't change it. I have a theory on what happened: For the time when the DHCP server wasn't operating due to not thinking it was any longer authorized, the AutoCAD PC tried to get a DHCP address, got nothing, so made up one of it's own (169.x.x.x or whatever MS has them default to) and said "Yo I am now on a Public network", and after I fixed the DHCP issue it picked up the new IP address but didn't feel like changing itself back to "Domain" network. Anyone know if I'm close? This one was tough because I was led all over the place. David Lum Systems Engineer // NWEATM Office 503.548.5229 // Mobile 503.267.9764 ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to [email protected] with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin
