FactoryTalk Activation Manager - Dynamic Port issue with firewall

[harryting]

Rockwell Tech Support seemed to have hit a wall with this question. Already updated the version to 5.00.13 per their suggestio but am still having issue with flexsvr portion of the Activation Manager.

Initially, we opened up a port used by flexsvr.exe and it worked for a while. The next time a different port was used and it fails. Is there a way to force flexsvr.exe to use a specific port every time?

ETA: this is RA's list of ports FactoryTalk Activation Manager firewall ports and rules.

 

[Mike__T]

Flexsvr Server activation uses dynamically allocated ports, and these cause issues with firewalls that only allow a list of specified ports.
I have got this working with IT at a couple of large sites in the past and put together the following guide to document what was done.
Hopefully it's still current with the later versions of Activation Manager.

The guide is based on the information contained in the following Tech Notes:

ID: IN3991 | Access Levels: Everyone
FactoryTalk Activations in advanced network environments

ID: QA10319 | Access Levels: Everyone
Changing TCP port number in FactoryTalk Activation Manager

 

[harryting]

Thanks Mike. that worked. I only apply some of the stuff in there since we already opened the port for the code meter but that note is very helpful. We only did this edit in the *.lic file.

VENDOR flexsvr PORT=XXXXX

/rant warning

Rockwell still have not got back to me. Their tech support seems to be shell what it used to be. Why couldn't they draft up something like Mike just did here when they already have roughly the same info spread in 2 or 3 different technote? Are they just run by financial wizard whose claim to fame is make more people forced to use their subscription model?