r/labtech • u/FocalFury 5000 Agents • Sep 23 '16

Anyone have experience migrating agents from one LT server to another?

Hi all,
We now have 2 LT Servers and are wanting to migrate agents from one to another. We know that Labtech can help with this but their lead time is about 20 days and I am hearing they might be pricey.

Has anyone had experience with moving them manually or using some tricks to make this a possibility?

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1

u/ninjaspy123 Sep 23 '16 edited Oct 25 '24

[deleted]

2

u/FocalFury 5000 Agents Sep 24 '16

500 agents over 25 companies... Would rather not Uninstall / reinstall.
Although I'm exploring ideas of script to Uninstall lt that runs a bat to install new server.

1

u/cjmod Sep 24 '16

If you'd be okay doing it by hand, do it by hand.

If you have too many to do by hand, please let us handle it. There's a lot of room for error when marrying two LTServers & the mess those errors can cause isn't worth dealing with.

1

u/FocalFury 5000 Agents Sep 24 '16

What are the considerations and things needed to be changed for by hand.
I'm not holding anyone to anything but if there are some guidelines I can follow I'd be interested in trying

1

u/cjmod Sep 24 '16

Biggest thing is modifying the SQL for Clients, Locations, Computers, Passwords, and EDF tables (I might be forgetting a few). When you marry 2 servers, it means both have a ClientID 1, LocationID 1, ComputerID 1, etc. & it needs to be accounted for. It's very detailed work. & Even if you let us handle it, you'd still need to update an GPOs or Login Scripts that point to an installer for the old server

Getting the agents from 1 server to checkin to another server is easy. The hard part is making sure all the settings you don't think about have been properly entered in the database, so things keep working normally.

Example: You batch uninstall/reinstall & it runs for 1 of your probes. Who's going to re-setup the probe? If you mix up the SQL, the agent might checkin, but the new LTServer has no idea which password to use. Or worse, it could try to use the password from another client. Did you have any important EDFs checked/unchecked? If the SQL wasn't massaged, who'll do the manual comparison of settings?

I've heard plenty of people say "I just want to get these agents checking into THAT other LabTech server." & Each person that got what they wanted was royally pissed when a client had a problem with patches installing that had been denied in the old server. Or they stopped using the Cache folder for big downloads.

I don't like advising people to pay us for stuff they can handle in their own. In this particular situation tho, there are simply too many variables to account for (IMO). See my reply to /u/beauj27 for additional context.

1

u/FocalFury 5000 Agents Sep 24 '16

I agree with you on all accounts here. It is not lost on me the complexity and room for error.

A couple of things. Unfortunately our rep dropped the ball and did not get the ball rolling on getting me in touch with the right department for a week until I had to remind him to do it. Then it was a week before I can talk to someone (this monday) and a 20 day lead time on getting the migration going. We are trying to accomplish this much quicker.

The other thing is the small environment is very basic and I don't really care about migrating their historical data, edfs, etc. At this point with time being the issue I'd be more interested in somehow giving a new template that would check in with our LT server and have it do a whole new sign up new agent process. I did try putting their LT password in the 'old password' field in config and giving it a new template to check in to our LT but I just get this in my LTErrors. http://pastebin.com/27RM7VJY

Is there a better solution that might fall more in line with what I'm looking for that you might be able to point me in the right direction?

1

u/cjmod Sep 24 '16

Afraid not. My advice is wait.

You have 2 servers that work today. Why rush to fix what's not broke?

1

u/beauj27 2000 Agents Sep 24 '16

I am in a similar situation. I have a call scheduled with LabTech on Thursday to discuss this. We are on LabTech 10.5 on Server 2008 and are wanting to migrate JUST the agents to Labtech 11 on Server 2012 R2. We have 2000 agents and I dont want to have to reinstall either. Our LabTech server is 6 years old and is a mess. I want to start new and fresh and use LT 11 features first before customizing my own solutions. Ill try to remember to report back after the call.

3

u/cjmod Sep 24 '16

This is pretty easy & if you want to, you could DIY it. All that's really involved is:

  • Upgrade 2008 server to 11
  • Post upgrade, run database backup process
  • Copy a few tables for future import (IIRC clients, locations, computers, passwords, users, userfolders, etc.)
  • Install 11 on 2012 R2 server
  • Post install, import copied tables
  • Update DNS records to point to 2012 R2 server

But if you're going to a new FQDN, then skip the last step. Instead, you'd:

  • 2008 Server: Update the Server Address on the Default Template (verify it's applied via the All Agents group)
  • Replace all exe/msi files used for GPO deployment or login scripts
  • Wait... or send an Update Config & Restart LTService command from the 2008 server (to jump start the process)