LMS 3.1 Device Center Function Links, FQDN

helexis · ‎10-20-2009

I am back to where I started with the FQDN issue I have been trying to address for the past several weeks.

The main symptom is simply that the links to functions from Device Center of those on the remote servers do not consistently work. Sometimes they open a new window with just the portal. Sometimes they do not open at all if the user is configured to append an alternate domain suffix.

Joe Clarke · ‎10-20-2009

This hostname comes from the PIDM table which tracks which applications manage which devices (see the list of applications managing the given device in Device Center). You'll notice that all servers are listed with their short hostnames (e.g. RME@CISCOWORKS-RME). So much of LMS relies on the short hostname which is why I said a while back that I always recommend that customers try and use the short hostnames everywhere.

Changing PIDM to use an FQDN is very hard, and I'm not sure it's ever been done. It would require changing PX_HOST, and other internal occurrences of hostname to be the FQDN instead of the default short hostname. One would then have to delete and re-manage all devices in the various applications.

As for the links opening to the portal, that should not happen. What is the exact flow when you click on such a link? Are you prompted to re-authenticate on the remote server? Are your servers configured for Single Sign On?

helexis · ‎10-21-2009

Yes the servers are configured for single sign-on. No I don't get the login prompt.

As I said it isn't consistent and happens to be functioning correctly this morning so I cannot offer any more details. I think this may be happening after being logged in for some time. My thought is that when clicking the links for the slave functions it thinks I need to login first so it redirects to the master but the master already has me logged in and therefore skips right on in to the portal page. Rare but possible and I just happen to create that scenario more often than many would simply cause I stay logged in most of the day.

Focusing more on the first part of your response I appreciate your detailed explanation. I have reverted everything back to the short hostname. I just forgot one place-the homepage settings of the master (just found it). That answers my question about why they are different.

Joe Clarke · ‎10-21-2009

If you run into a situation when this is happening (hopefully once it happens, it can be reproduced again), open a TAC service request so an engineer can look at this in real time. It's baffling to me as to how this could happen since the links in DC are fully-qualified (i.e. they should take you to exactly the specified location). My thought is perhaps this is an SSO issue.