"Cannot set broker name" error when logging into Harvest

Products

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

Issue/Introduction

This error can happen when trying to login to broker via Harvest Administrator/Workbench GUI or you can also receive this error message "Cannot set broker name" while running command line utilities or other functionality of Harvest. What could the problem be and how do I resolve this problem? There could be several reasons for why this problem happens. Mostly the problem is network related, when you are unable to reach the broker machine. A few things can be done to resolve the problem.

Environment

Harvest Software Change Manager v13.x and higher

Resolution

A few things to isolate the problem first:

Try to ping the broker machine's short hostname from your client PC
Example:
```
ping <hostname>
```
where <hostname> is the short hostname of the machine where Harvest Server is running
Result: The machine reply with ipaddress is displayed
Try to ping the broker machine's Fully Qualified DNS name from your client PC
```
ping <hostname>.company.com
```
where <hostname>.company.com is the fully qualified DNS name of the machine where harvest server is running
Result: The machine reply with ipaddress is displayed
Try to telnet the broker machine from your client PC
Example:
```
telnet <hostname> 5101
```
where <hostname> is the host name where harvest server is running
And 5101 is the RTServer* port#
Result: you will get a couple of characters and then a disconnect message "Connection to host lost" which means the connection was established (means port is open as well)

NOTE: Port 5101 is the default connection port for Harvest. If this test fails, contact your Harvest Admin to confirm the correct RTServer port.

If you are unable to ping and/or telnet the machine, that means the machine is not reachable in your network.

To resolve this problem add the ip address and brokername (normally the short hostname of the Harvest broker server) to the client machine's "hosts" file.

For Windows this file is located in C:\Windows\system32\drivers\etc directory.
For Unix this file is located in /etc directory.

After adding the ipaddress and hostname in the hosts file, the broker machine should now be reachable in network and the problem will get resolved.

A few other things to check:

Check the Broker Name: The broker name is normally the short host name of the computer where Harvest Server is running. However, this can be configured by the Harvest Administrator to be the fully qualified name of the Harvest Server, or another name all together. In all of these scenarios, the Harvest Server will only answer to one name. When in doubt, check with your Harvest Administrator to confirm the correct broker name. Your Harvest Client machine must be able to resolve the broker name to the correct IP address for the Harvest Server machine.
Check the Broker's port number: By default, the correct port number to use is 5101. However this, also, can be configured by the Harvest Administrator to be a different port number. When in doubt, check with your Harvest Administrator to confirm the correct broker port number.
Check with your Harvest Administrator to confirm the Harvest broker is up and running.
Check your %CA_SCM_HOME% to see if a file named "HClient.arg" exists. If it does, check this file to see if there is a line that starts with "-RTServer=". If you find a "-RTServer=" setting in this file, double check to be sure the correct broker name and port number are listed there, especially if your Harvest installation is configured to use a different port number. For more information, check the section titled Specify the Network Port Number

Additional Information

If telnet is disabled, the second option would be to try this with putty if you have that installed. A third option would be to execute the following from powershell on the client machine:

$t = New-Object System.Net.Sockets.TcpClient 'brokername', 5101; if($t.Connected) {"OK"}

(change “brokername” to the actual broker name)