SMS: Remote Control Improvement of DHCP Clients

• Microsoft Systems Management Server, version 1.2

SUMMARY

New to Systems Management Server 1.2 is the ability to do remote control over TCP/IP sockets. This does not require any name resolution to function properly, but instead uses the IP address for that client defined in the SMS database.

Remote control may fail when trying to locate DHCP clients whose IP address has changed. Systems Management Server will fail to establish an IP socket helpdesk session if the SMS Database does not contain the client's correct IP address.

MORE INFORMATION

Depending on how frequent the DHCP lease is, and how often the client inventory is taken, a situation might arise where the client gets a new IP address but the inventory is not updated. Remote control will then fail because it relies on the wrong IP address in the SMS Database.

The remote client discovery process used by the viewer (sightnt.dll) has been changed so that it attempts to resolve the Netbios machine name to the current IP address (using WINS, LMHosts, DNS, etc..), and then uses the normal IP Socket connection with the current address rather than using the address in the SMS Database.

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in Systems Management Server version 1.2. This problem has been corrected in the latest U.S. Service Pack for Systems Management Server version 1.2. For information on obtaining the Service Pack, query on the following word in the Microsoft Knowledge Base (without the spaces):

   S E R V P A C K