Windchill 10.2 on Server 2012 R2 - Installation

[wsparling]

Hi All,

I'm a complete noob when it comes to setting up a server (I'm a mech eng; not an IT admin!). We just got this machine last week and I've slowly been setting it up for our new office. I've got Windchill PDM Essentials installed and configured on the server, but I can't seem to access Windchill from other machines on the network. The server is definitely visible to the other computers, as I can access shared folders, etc. But if I type the windchill URL into any other machine, it can't find it. I also can't see the license server from the other machines.

Any suggestions?

Thanks

[TomU]

Firewall. Turn it off. Also, did you use the actual machine's name for the Windchill server name or some alias? If alias, you will need to create that in either your local hosts file or DNS.

By the way, I'm pretty sure R2 is not "officially" supported, but I'm running the full blown Windchill PDM Link on it without any issues. FWIW.

[wsparling]

Thanks, Tom. After disabling the firewall, the license server worked properly. I still can't QUITE access Windchill. When I'm on the server and I'm in windchill, the URL looks like this:

http://servername.domain.local:81/Windchill/

If I enter that in another computer on the network, I get nothing.

However, I tried just entering

http://servername:81/Windchill/

I was then prompted for login information and I got a very brief PTC splash screen before I lost it again because it tried to change the URL back to servername.domain.local...

I assume this is a DNS issue as you mentioned, but I'm not clear on what I need to do to fix that.

[GaryMansell · Accepted solution]

Are you using a Web Proxy Server by any chance on your client machines to access the Internet (and hence the Windchill System)? If so, then this can cause the behaviour that you are seeing.

To test if this is the cause, change the Browser Settings to no proxy (you will lose external Internet access for now) and then try and access the Windchill Server again. If this fixes the issue, then the proper fix is to turn switch the proxy back on again in the client machine's browser settings and do one of the followiing (depends on your site's network config):

1. Tick the Bypass Proxy for Local Addresses check box
2. Configure a bypass proxy host list in the browser settings with both the short and Fully Qualified Domain Name of the Windchill server in it.

It also sounds like you have an problem resolving the FQDN of the Windchill Server on your client machine - this be looked into also. If the client machine is not also located in the same domain.local domain as the windchill server, then you may need to add this domain to the DNS search scope of the client - this is in the TCP v4 Internet Settings / Advanced / DNS tab of the client machine.

Hope that helps

Rgds

Gary

[wsparling]

It was the FQDN issue that you mentioned. I entered the IP of the server in the DNS server addresses on the client machine and now it works. Thank you so much!