ERROR: Could not resolve node name _node where RT_FORCE_NODE_NAME is not working

Products

• CA Harvest Software Change Manager - OpenMake Meister
• CA Harvest Software Change Manager

Issue/Introduction

After doing all the necessary steps to configure SCM to use a different broker name, rtserver can start up, but the broker and hservers can't seem to find it.  We try to start the broker from a command prompt with this command:

bkrd -minserver=0 -maxserver=0 -verbose

And the process seems to hang for a couple of minutes, then comes back with this message:

HBroker | 20180723 11:48:45 | ERROR: Could not resolve node name _node
HBroker | 20180723 11:48:45 | ERROR: Initialization fails
HBroker | 20180723 11:48:45 | ---- stopped ----

Environment

CA Harvest SCM all versions and platforms

Cause

When the broker process tries to connect to the rtserver, it will assume the rtserver's name is the same as the hostname of the computer unless this line is added to the HBroker.arg file:

-rtserver=<new broker name>

The broker will also not be able to connect if it cannot resolve the broker name to the correct IP address.  

Resolution

There are 2 steps to the solution:

First, you will need to add the following line to your HBroker.arg file:
-rtserver=<new broker name>

Second, you will need to help the broker resolve the new broker name to the correct IP address.  You can do this by either:
- Add the new broker name and IP address to your broker machine's hosts file
- Add an alias to the DNS directory so that it can return the correct IP address for the new broker name.

Additional Information

Location of the HBroker.arg file is

• %CA_SCM_HOME%\HBroker.arg (on Windows)
• $CA_SCM_HOME/HBroker.arg (on Linux/Unix)

Location of the hosts file is

• C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts (on Windows)
• /etc/hosts (on Linux/Unix)