License server crashed. How to migrate license?

[stevek247]

Hi, Trying to gather information on what my next step is here. 

First, here's what I have and the issue I am having. 

Have 4 ESX hosts running 3.5

vCenter 4.1 running in one of those.

Separate physical license server box.

So this morning, I had an issue with one of my VM's and needed and reboot.  I shutdown the OS and VM, but when I tried to start it up, it gave me an saying it doesn't have enough CPU license to boot up.   Poked around a bit and noticed in the "configuration" "License" page saying "License server hostname.domain not found." 

I checked my License server and decided maybe a reboot would help.  Waited a bit and never came back up.  I can't even get it to boot or show BIOS screen during startup.  It's just a blank screen.  Possibly motherboard or some other hardware issue.  I'm dispatching a tech to our DC to see if the server is recoverable. 

Since this happened, I can't connect to my vcenter server via client nor start up the vcenter server service.  Likely because it lost ODBC to my license server.  However, I can connect to the esx hosts via client no problem. 

Long story short, If I lost my License Server, what's my next move?  Build a new license server?  How can I even reestablish the new connection if I can't connect to my vcenter server? 

[Linjo]

Sounds like a serious issue, I would start with restoring the backup.

// Linjo

[stevek247]

Getting serious.  We have backups available.  Actually mounting the backups to another server to access the license files. 

Anyway to directly use the license instead of going to the License server? 

[stevek247]

To update.  I've finally completed volume restore to another server.  I've installed VMware License Server to it and setup the license file there.  Then, I re-pointed the hosts to the new license server.  All is well for the time being now... Still need to get the original server repaired.  If not, I'll be completing this new build with the vCenter DB as well.