OpsMgr Agent stays in ‘Not Monitored’ status. Is DNS OK?

Picked this one up from a thread on the Microsoft TechNet OpsMgr Forums. Special thanks to Graham Davies who found the cause.

Some one had pushed out OpsMgr Agents to multiple servers. Most of them worked properly but just a few of them staid in a ‘Not Monitored’ status. After having tried many things, this status was still unchanged.

Finally, it turned out that were problems with DNS. Although the FQDN’s were in place, on the problematic servers the DNS suffix for the computer name wasn’t correct.

So whenever you have problems with non-responsive OpsMgr Agents, while the rest is working properly, double check DNS. Not only the FQDN’s but also on the problematic servers itself. Is the DNS suffix of the computer name OK? Also, run a netstat –an from the Primary Management Server for the Agents (mostly this isn’t the RMS) to see whether the ip-addresses of the problematic servers are being shown.