topic Re: HP VC Agent error in Server Management - Systems Insight Manager

HP VC Agent error

Brad J. Langhorst — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 13:53:40 GMT

Hello,

I've tried searching and haven't had any luck finding a solution for my problem. When I go to the server and launch the VC Agent from the System Management home page, I receive:

"The Version Control Agent encountered an error while obtaining the software and firmware inventory."

It is happening on 4 servers -- all running Windows 2003 Enterprise x64 w/ SP2. SNMP is enabled and localhost is in the list of hosts to accept SNMP packets from (as is the SIM server). I was running the 8.0 agents and tried upgrading to 8.1 to see if that solved the problem, but it did not. Any ideas?

Re: HP VC Agent error

Rob Buxton — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 00:03:08 GMT

The VCA uses a logon to get to the VCRM not SNMP.
You may want to recheck the credentials being used by the VCA.
I use a local account on the VCRM server (usually the HPSIM Server but doesn't have to be) as the account to logon under.

Re: HP VC Agent error

Predator — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 10:38:25 GMT

Can you please attach the screenshot of the error the VCA is giving. Then it will be easy to troubleshoot.

Re: HP VC Agent error

Brad J. Langhorst — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 11:36:19 GMT

Please see the attachment below for the errors. As you can see, I can't get into any of the settings to detemine what the problem might be.

I am seeing an initial timeout on all of my servers when going into the systems management homepage. I believe that this is due to an SNMP setting (or lack thereof) and specifically, might be related to the read/create community string. The SNMP settings for our servers are set via a domain policy from before I started here, so I think that will need to change.

Regarding the first post -- please note that I do have this working on at least 1 server so far (just started a couple days ago), and the only credentials I configured were when I configured it to connect to the SIM server. Since I can't even get to the VC settings on these "error" machines to configure them, I am not sure how this could be the problem, though if there is somewhere else I need to look, please let me know.

Thanks

Re: HP VC Agent error

Predator — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 12:07:37 GMT

It seems to be like something happened in VCA to VCRM configuration credentials. Just try deleting "vcagent.options". This file is under <%system drive%>hp\hpsmh\data\cgi-bin\vcagent\vcagent.options. Hope this will solve the problem

Re: HP VC Agent error

Brad J. Langhorst — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 13:21:50 GMT

Unfortunately, that did not fix the issue.

Re: HP VC Agent error

Willou — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 08:32:41 GMT

Hi,

You should check your VC agent version (and why not SMH too) and upgarde it to the last avilable. I got several problems with vca (like this one, vcagent crash, timeout while browsing smh, unknown System Model in SMH, etc.)...

After upgrading all was ok.

Install the last available for VC Agent (v.2.1.10.801), reboot and check. Precedents versions had some bad upgrade failures fixed with last one.

In the same time, you should upgrade HP SMH too (v2.1.14.201).

SW

Re: HP VC Agent error

Brad J. Langhorst — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 11:33:48 GMT

Actually, I applied the latest Support Paq (8.1) as the first step in troubleshooting this issue. It did not resolve the problem.

Re: HP VC Agent error

Rob Buxton — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 19:21:29 GMT

From your workstation you should be able to login to the VCA, e.g. https://server:2381/vcagent
What does that do?

Also with the VCRM, how is that configured for the repository?
If the account is correct and it's logging in okay, then the issue may be with the VCRM itself. Form HPSIM click on the server hosting the VCRM (usually the HPSIM Server) and then under the Tools & Links tab click on the VCRM Link.
Check that the repository is configured correctly.

Re: HP VC Agent error

Brad J. Langhorst — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 19:41:02 GMT

The VCRM seems to be working fine, as I do have one of my servers working with it. Keep in mind I am not able to even get to the point on the VCA to point it to the VCRM so I'm not sure that is the problem.

If I go to the vcagent from my workstation by going to http://server:2381/vcagent, I get the same error as posted previously -- ie, The Version Control Agent encountered an error while obtaining the software and firmware inventory..

Re: HP VC Agent error

Rob Buxton — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 20:25:05 GMT

You could try configuring the VCA Agent using the VCRM and then redeploying it.

You could also configure it with incorrect credentials to see what that does.

You're not using "localhost" in the configuration of the VCA are you? With domain credentials? That would cause it to login OK but then fail as there would be no repository.

Re: HP VC Agent error

TechGuru — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 05:31:49 GMT

Brad J. Langhorst,

Can you change the VCA service to run with local administrator credentials?

i think that might solve this issue.

This issue has nothing to with VCRM settings.

This issue has to do with HP Insight management Agent ,SNMP or VCA.

Re: HP VC Agent error

Brad J. Langhorst — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 16:23:54 GMT

Thanks, but setting the HP VCA service account to the local admin did not work either. I agree with you that it isn't anything with the VCRM. I believe it is our SNMP domain policy, so I will pursue that next.

Re: HP VC Agent error

Ryan Maider — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 18:27:49 GMT

I am having the same issue, was there any resolution on this?

Re: HP VC Agent error

Brad J. Langhorst — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 18:34:07 GMT

Yes, I was able to finally resolve this issue. It had to do with the SNMP community strings, which we defined at the domain policy level. IIRC (and I would have to check), the policies only allow you to define Read Only strings to the exclusion of R/W and R/C strings. I removed the policy and then manually set the strings on the servers. I believe that is what resolved it, but it was a few months ago so my memory may be a bit foggy.

Re: HP VC Agent error

Ryan Maider — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 20:41:18 GMT

Found another thread. It has to do with the registry keys being in different places based on how the settings were applied.

If you apply the SNMP settings through a GPO the keys are as follows:
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\SNMP\Parameters

If you set the SNMP settings manually under services the settings are here:
HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\SNMP\Parameters

The HP agents appear to use the keys from the second key. Which means you have to configure all SNMP settings manually through the SMH which changes the area of the registry.