when i rename the ghost server , the ghost console clients looks for the old ghost server name. any ideas on how i can fix this problem?
The name of the server is embedded in the public key certificate file (pubkey.crt), and the name remembered there is the one that the server was first installed on; the primary identifier the clients search for isn't the name, however, that's mainly for display purposes. The primary method clients use to locate the server is via a multicast query that includes a cryptographic challenge, and as long as the public/private keys still match up (which they will) then all will be well.
Now, the old machine name may come into play if you have configured your network such that IP multicasting is disabled, in which case the clients fall back to trying to locate the server using WINS. But even then, the server should detect that the current name is different than the original name and will add NetBIOS name registrations for both the old and new names. So, things still should work despite the machine renaming.
A good check to run is to use
nbtstat -n on the server machine, where you should see
ConfigServer<1C> as a group name, and something like
OldServerName<2D> and
NewServerName<2D> as unique names. If the clients can't locate the server using multicast, they will do NetBIOS queries for the old server name and then authenticate the server, so check to see that the server is registering both names.
If things aren't working and the clients aren't finding the server, you should leave a message at Symantec's
Ghost forums. Solving this may involve digging a bit into your network configuration (particularly your switches and whether your network is multicast-capable or not) and possibly getting a packet trace using a tool like Wireshark so the developers (i.e., me) can dig deeper.
- Nigel.