Unity Migration Blog

Hi folks, my first post to the blog (please be gentle!).

I've successfully brought up the FlexLM license server which we'll be using to host Autodesk licenses. The configuration for license services may change at some point, but a single server is enough for testing purposes.

Host: flexlm1.unity.ad.ncsu.edu

I created and linked a firewall GPO to the License OU, so that the FlexLM license port (2080) can pass through. Since the domain-linked GPOs are apparently not currently propagating, I also added a manual firewall exception on the machine (which can be removed later).

I'm now working on putting together installers for some Autodesk products. For now, I'm going to focus on AutoCAD 2007, and possibly Land Desktop 2007 from the Civil Series. Autodesk has a nifty Administrative Installation tool on many of their product CDs, which should make it easier to put these products on the domain.

Well, with NetBIOS off at least a few hosts, my WMI scripting is begining to work. :-)

We have a new page to track the number of KMS activations for Windows Vista are on our server(s). You'll find it at http://microsys.unity.ncsu.edu/status/KMS-Licenses.html

I intend to repackage this as a nagios plugin that will report "warning" should the actual license count get close to the minimum count, and "critial" should the minimum not be met. This would allow us to get proactive warnings from Sysnews, when combined with proper testing intervals and notifcation rules.

The renewal interval for the KMS service has been increased to 30 days -- the maximum allowable value. The default is 7 days. This is the command that was entered to change the value:

cscript slmgr.vbs -sli 43200

LICENSE00 was then rebooted.

The number of activations the KMS service manages must be kept above 25, also known as the "n-count". Clients periodically try to check in with the KMS service per the renewal interval to refresh their activations. The KMS service also knows that the clients should try to check in. If the KMS service does not hear from the client for a duration longer than the renewal interval, it decreases its n-count. Our n-count decreased because we installed Vista over and over again on the same machines to get the count above 25.

This should help us keep the n-count above 25 until enough Vista clients actively use the KMS service.

The unity.ncsu.edu and unity.ad.ncsu.edu DNS domains have been updated by Comtech so that the KMS SRV records are configured per our documentation. They are configured to use the kms1 and kms2 CNAMEs.

C:\>nslookup -type=srv _vlmcs._tcp.unity.ncsu.edu
Server: ns3.ncsu.edu
Address: 152.1.1.206

_vlmcs._tcp.unity.ncsu.edu SRV service location:
priority = 0
weight = 100
port = 1688
svr hostname = kms2.unity.ad.ncsu.edu
_vlmcs._tcp.unity.ncsu.edu SRV service location:
priority = 0
weight = 100
port = 1688
svr hostname = kms1.unity.ad.ncsu.edu

C:\>nslookup -type=srv _vlmcs._tcp.unity.ad.ncsu.edu
Server: ns3.ncsu.edu
Address: 152.1.1.206

_vlmcs._tcp.unity.ad.ncsu.edu SRV service location:
priority = 0
weight = 100
port = 1688
svr hostname = kms2.unity.ad.ncsu.edu
_vlmcs._tcp.unity.ad.ncsu.edu SRV service location:
priority = 0
weight = 100
port = 1688
svr hostname = kms1.unity.ad.ncsu.edu

I installed Vista after the change was made and it was activated using kms1.

I also created the kms.unity.ad.ncsu.edu CNAME to be used for manual activations. We will have to set it up for round-robin once the 2nd license server is online.

We have hit the 25 activation threshold and our KMS service is fully activating Vista clients now.

Run the following command to check the activation status on a Vista workstation:

cscript slmgr.vbs -dli

You should see a line in the output that says "License Status: Licensed":

Name: Windows(TM) Vista, Enterprise edition
Description: Windows Operating System - Vista, VOLUME_KMSCLIENT channel
Partial Product Key: 4BWMV
License Status: Licensed
Volume activation expiration: 259193 minute(s) (179 day(s))

Key Management Service client information
Client Machine ID (CMID): 6c50254c-9636-4ed3-bbe7-365905a39a57
KMS machine name from DNS: kms1.unity.ad.ncsu.edu:1688
KMS machine extended PID: 55041-00142-026-826687-03-1033-6000.0000-3472006
Activation interval: 120 minutes
Renewal interval: 10080 minutes

Thanks to everyone who has been installing Vista over and over again!

We have begun some documentation regarding our KMS services and other volume license activation issues:

http://microsys.unity.ncsu.edu/documentation/Microsoft-Volume-License-Activation/

Please check it out and let me know if anything should be added or changed.

Also, I registered the cnames kms1.unity.ad.ncsu.edu and kms2.unity.ad.ncsu.edu. These currently point to license00. We should instruct people to use these rather than the actual server names. When a second license server is added, all we'll need to do is change what kms2 points to.