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Changing polling engines for agent monitored servers

Hi,

We are currently having a Solarwinds deployment (lets call it ABC) with around 500+ agent monitored servers. We are building a new Solarwinds environment parallel(we can call it XYZ) to the existing one to which we will be moving the devices from current Solarwinds ABC.

I would like to know that if it is possible to move the agent monitored servers in ABC to XYZ with out reinstalling the agents. Can anyone help me on this.

  • If you haven't yet, you should read the Orion Platform Migration Guide.  There are several possible approaches.  If you can, you might want to consider using the same IP address and hostname to minimize the migration effort.  If you aren't able to do that, though, the guide does explain how to redeploy or reconnect agents.

    Orion Platform Migration Guide

  • Hi Dan,

    I have gone through the migration guide, but in our case I cannot say it as a migration as we are not using the same database in the new deployment. Everything is build from scratch, adding each device again in new Solarwinds environment.

    In that case for agent monitored servers as the old agent is already available in the server, is it possible to point that agent to new Solarwinds polling engines instead of reinstalling the agents again.

  • I believe that you'll want to pursue one of the options in step 14 of the migration guide for a new server with a new IP/host name:

    Migrate SolarWinds Orion products to a new server with a new IP or hostname

    14. Redeploy or reconnect to Agents

    You have multiple options for deploying or reconnecting to existing Agents during a migration. You can:

    • Redeploy agents through an Orion server push(recommended)
    • Manually changing the Orion server IP address the agent uses via the Windows Control Panel
    • Use the Group Policy Administrative template to redirect existing agents to the new Orion server
  • This is generally the easiest way. When you go to add a node that originally was assigned to a (polling engine that no longer exists), it'll basically just point the agent to the new server. I forgot the method under manage agents, but it'll look like you're fresh deploying but you won't end up doing so.

  • Hi Dan,

    Can you please tell me how to change the Orion server IP address of agent via Windows control panel. I tired to repair the agent, but its not showing any option to change the IP.

    However I tried to change the IP from the CFG file, but after that I am connectivity errors in the agent log. Seems like agent certificate is not working after the polling engine IP is changed.

  • Windows devices

    1. Log on with an administrator account to the computer with the agent installed on it.
    2. Open Orion Agent Settings in the Control Panel.If you get an error when opening Agent Settings in the Control Panel, navigate to the C:\ProgramData\SolarWinds\Agent directory, and Permanently Grant Access to that directory for your user when prompted.
    3. Select the Agent Communication Mode.
    4. Edit the Connection Settings.
      The Agent Shared Secret is provided for security. When you install the agent, you must set a shared secret. When the Orion server connects to the agent, it verifies the secret to connect.
    5. Click OK to save your changes.

    When communication between the agent and the Orion server is successful, the agent is listed on the Manage Agents page with the updated communication mode.

  • Not practical on over 1,000 servers.

  • Extremely impractical, I would just re-deploy the agents without even blinking.

  • The agent is having cert errors because it is expecting to be able to use the cert that was used by the previous system.  It needs a new cert.  You could probably dig up some way to modify the files and replace the cert by hand but it seems infinitely more reasonable to just reinstall the agent from the new environment, certs will be handled automatically and in a fully supported non-hackish method.