The server got a new name, a new IP, or a whole new machine — and now every agent in the company is reporting to an address where nothing answers. Nothing is actually broken; the agents are just faithfully following old directions. Here is how to give them new ones.
This is the disaster this series warned about in the very first checklist, arriving right on schedule: the Endpoint Central server was renamed, re-IP’d or moved, and the console has gone quiet. Understand what actually happened and the panic fades — every agent was deployed with the server’s name, IP and ports baked into its configuration, and agents keep using those values until someone tells them otherwise. The server did not lose the agents. The agents lost the server. ManageEngine provides a documented fix — a small script that re-points agents to the new address — and this page walks through the whole recovery, including the GPO route for when you cannot visit two hundred desks.
Every agent failing at once, immediately after a server change, is not two hundred faults. It is one fault, two hundred times.
Total silence after a server change is a addressing problem, not an agent problem.
cscript configureDCAgentServerCommunication.vbs <ServerName> <ServerIP> <HTTPPort> <HTTPSPort> <Protocol>
Example — cscript configureDCAgentServerCommunication.vbs ec-server.company.local 192.168.1.20 8020 8383 https
Run it on a client and that agent immediately learns the new server address. The same script is the documented route for port changes and full server migrations.
One command, run per client — or pushed to all of them at once through a GPO, as the next sections show.
On any affected client, run ping <old-server-name> and notice what the agent is still trying to reach. Then check the agent service is running — it almost always is. If the server moved, also confirm the new server itself is healthy: console opens, service running, ports 8020, 8383 and 8027 answering on the new address. Fixing the agents' directions is pointless if the destination is not actually there yet.
Download ManageEngine’s configureDCAgentServerCommunication script from the product’s agent communication help page, copy it to a client, and run it from an elevated command prompt with your real values: server name, server IP, HTTP port 8020, HTTPS port 8383, and the protocol your agents use. Within a refresh cycle the agent reports in to the new server. Prove the fix on two or three machines before scaling it — if they check in, the method is right and only the delivery remains.
For a domain, do not visit desks. Place the script where clients can reach it and deliver it through a Group Policy startup script or scheduled task, exactly the machinery you may have used to deploy the agent in the first place. ManageEngine documents this GPO route for informing agents about new server details. Every machine corrects itself at next reboot or refresh, including the ones whose users never raise a ticket.
The same script carries the port numbers, so a move that also changed ports — common when the new server already had something on 8020 — is fixed in the same pass. This is also how port changes are applied to agents after you edit the server configuration and restart the ManageEngine UEMS - Server service: the server alone knowing new ports is not enough; every agent must be told. For branch offices behind distribution servers, ManageEngine provides the companion script variant for distribution servers — run that on each distribution server as well.
After recovery: update your DNS records so the old name stops resolving (or deliberately keep an alias pointing at the new server during transition, and document its expiry date), fix any documentation that names the old address, and write down the lesson the whole series started with — the server’s name and IP are part of the product’s configuration, and changing them is a planned migration with a script ready, never a casual Friday edit.
Every setting on this page is shown live in the ManageEngine configuration video — watch it once and your own setup becomes easy.
▶️ Watch Full VideoAgents are deployed with the server name, IP and ports stored in their configuration, and they keep contacting those exact values. After a rename or IP change they are all calling an address where the server no longer answers — one addressing fault, repeated on every machine.
Run ManageEngine’s configureDCAgentServerCommunication script on each client with the new server name, IP, ports and protocol — or push the same script through a GPO startup script or scheduled task so every machine corrects itself.
Yes. The script is ManageEngine’s documented route for server migration and for name, IP and port changes alike. Prepare it before the move, prove it on a few machines first, then roll it out through GPO.