In addition to my hosts file issue, when I tried starting my application server for the first time the other day, I ran into an error where everything started except for the JLS which is clearly kind of important. Everything looked fine and the configuration clearly worked on other servers. However, the problem turned out that when I set the application server Jolt settings I entered the machine name which was called 33psapp1. Since the server name starts with a number it gets all upset and thinks that I have entered an IP address when clearly I haven’t. So changing the name to the IP address solves the problem.

You can’t use a machine name that starts with a number in the psappsrv.cfg configuration file. Just simply enter the IP address.

The other day I was configuring a new production system for a client and I ran into something I have never seen before. I was trying to test the SSL certificates on the new servers and since the old servers are still running in production I can’t change the DNS entries so I simply fired up UltraEdit and modified my hosts file to have the new server IP point to the new server SSL host name. This always works for me, except this time. I checked the logs and I am seeing all sorts of odd SSL revoked errors in the logs and I am seeing the OLD IP address instead of the new IP address.

I am completely puzzled, all I can see is that I am not picking up the new IP address from the hosts file. After running this by one of the server administrators he tells me that he has seen the problem before, and that I need to disable the DNS Client Service.

DNS Client Service: The DNS Client service is the client component that resolves and caches Domain Name System (DNS) domain names. When the DNS Client service receives a request to resolve a DNS name that it does not contain in its cache, it queries an assigned DNS server for an IP address for the name. If the DNS Client service receives the requested address, it stores the name and address in its cache to resolve future requests without having to query the DNS server. All computers that use DNS to resolve domain names (including DNS servers and domain controllers) use the DNS Client service for this purpose.

Sure enough once disabled, the host file is read and we are able to test the SSL certificate without an issue. I have done some reading on this and I am not completely sure that disabling the service is necessary, however, it did work in this case. From what I read it maybe a problem with the registry or with security on the hosts file. Some people were able to resolve the issue by simply deleting the hosts file and creating a new one which changed the security permissions on the hosts file, others have reported that there is a policy item and the registry is point to an incorrect policy.

Irregardless, for my testing needs, stopping the service and updating the hosts file then validating that the SSL certificates were in place was sufficient.

I found an odd issue today when trying to start up an PeopleSoft Environment Hub Agent. The environment uses PeopleTools 8.53 in a decoupled configuration. When running the StartAgent.sh file it was reporting an error that it could not find the binary psae to run for the validation/crawl. It was saying that it could not be found in null/bin. This seems weird because everything is setup correctly as far as environment variables go.

With a little digging around it turned out that the peopletools.properties file in the PS_CFG_HOME had an incorrect installation path. Once I changed that the crawl started working without an issue. The peopletools.properties file in the PS_HOME was correct, so just make sure you check all the homes.

Smart Thinking Newsletter

ERP Shifts to the “Cloud” – Should Your Company Consider the Same?

A few years ago, as cloud storage began to make inroads, few thought that large enterprise software would ever make the leap. Store photos, files, contact information, sure – but enterprise software data and programs? No way. Much has changed. Companies are bigger, ERP software is more robust, and companies are looking for ways to edge out the competition with any advantage they can get. Moving solution sets to the cloud can provide a leg up, as well as giving a company’s own infrastructure some breathing room

This past weekend some of the Smart Panda team went down to Toronto and did a little team building exercise by walking around the CN Tower on the outside!

No Fear! Great job team!