Renaming A Profile Host

When a server is added into a GridLink farm, GridLink Utility sends the farm profile to this server, along with the Profile Host name. If this is the first time that this server receives such information, this server remembers this Profile Host name. In the future, when the farm profile is changed and GridLink Utility sends the new information to this server, it verifies the Profile Host name and only accepts the new profile if GridLink Utility uses the same Profile Host as what it remembers. If the Profile Host is different, then the server will disconnect from the utility.

This behaviour is designed for security reasons. Suppose that you have 2 farms managed separately using 2 Profile Hosts. If someone ran GridLink Utility, logged onto one Profile Host and then accidentally added a server used by another farm into this farm, the server will reject the connection and will not be updated with the wrong profile. The integrity of the farms is protected.

What if you need to rename the Profile Host for some reason? Does GridLink allow this to happen? The answer is yes. There are 2 ways for you to rename the Profile Host.

Using GridLink Utility To Change the Profile Host

You can use GridLink Utility to specify a new Profile Host. All the profiles stored in the original Profile Host will be transferred to the new one, and the new Profile Host will be registered on all GridLink servers. You can do this even when there are AXIS jobs running on the farm.

1. Run GridLink Utility using the original Profile Host.

2. If you have multiple profiles, switch to a profile that includes all servers. (If there’s no such a profile, then you need to create one.)

3. Right-click on the "new Profile Host to be", and select the menu “Tools – Make this server the Profile Host”. All the profiles will be transferred to the new Profile Host.

4. Close GridLink Utility.

After this, you can safely rename your Profile Host.

5. Rename the original Profile Host (NOTE: if this host is used in one or more profiles, please make sure there's no AXIS job running on the farm before renaming it.)

6. From now on, you can run GridLink Utility using the new Profile Host.

7. If the original Profile Host is used in one or more profiles, you need to go through each farm profile, remove the server with the old name, and add it again with the new name.

Using FirstAid To Change the Profile Host

If you have already renamed the Profile Host without going through the above procedures, then you need to run FirstAid.exe on each server to update them with the new Profile Host name.

1. Make sure there's no AXIS job running on the farm.

2. Log onto each server, go to the GridLink service installation directory.

3. Run FirstAid.exe, and it should show the original Profile Host name.

4. Clear the Profile Host name, and click on OK.

5. Click on "Yes" to confirm to restart the service.

Again, if the original Profile Host is used in one or more profiles, you need to go through each farm profile, remove the server with the old name, and add it again with the new name.