SCOM 2007 R2 Agent Pinging Issues and Concerns

Summary

At first glance, pinging a machine to test for connectivity and for Agent push should be a simple procedure of going to a Command prompt and typing: ping [the machine name].  That is not always the case.

Causes

Causes include:

o   The machine is down and not running.

o   Ping feature has been turned off.

o   The machine name can’t be resolved.

o   A firewall is blocking ping from working correctly.

Concerns

Concerns include:

If the issue is with the fact that machine name to IP can’t be resolved, then you’re going to need to add the necessary DNS server to correct this issue so that your agent install will work correctly.

Resolution

Do one or more of the following:

1. Go to Start and to a command prompt.  Rich click on the command prompt and use the administrator run as account. Try pinging the machine using only the machine name and not the fully qualified domain.  If this fails, try using the fully qualified domain name.

2. If this doesn’t work, contact your domain administrator to acquire the machine’s IP address, to assure the machine is up and running, and to confirm the machine can be pinged.

3. Once you have tried the IP address of the machine and that works, try using the machine name again. If that does not work, ask your administrator, if he can add that DNS to your IP configuration. If he or she just supplies you with the DNS, you’ll have to add it yourself. Please see the how to add a DNS to your local IP configuration.

4. Once this is added to your IP configuration, try running ping again to determine the DNS resolves the IP.