About the RSN.ini File

For server-based worksharing, the RSN.ini file provides the list of Revit Server Hosts that are available to a particular Revit application workstation, a Revit Server Accelerator, or a Revit Server instance with the Admin role enabled.

Typically, after all instances of Revit Server are installed, the administrator for the Revit Server network creates a master copy of this file that lists all Hosts, and then deploys it to the Revit application workstations, Accelerators, and Admin servers, editing it as needed to control or deny access to individual Hosts.

For a Revit application workstation, the RSN.ini file determines which Hosts are visible during file navigation. Likewise, for an Admin server, this file determines which Hosts can be accessed through the Revit Server Administrator.

The following table summarizes the results when this file is absent or incomplete.

If the RSN.ini file is not present on... Then...
a team member's Revit application workstation the Revit Server Network will be empty when selected in a file navigation window.
an Accelerator (or is incomplete) the Accelerator will fail to use cached model data if a model is moved to a different Host.
an Admin system the Revit Server Administrator will not display any content.

When creating the RSN.ini file, enter the name or IP address of each Revit Server Host on a separate line. Server names that begin with an underscore or that exceed 63 characters will not be loaded into file navigation. The RSN.ini file should be installed in the following location:

Note: When a user attempts to access a Revit Server Host, its entry in the RSN.ini file is checked to determine whether the server is valid. Normally this validation is fast and transparent to the user. However, if an entry references a non-existent server, it can take up to 30 seconds for Revit to confirm that the server is unavailable, and during this time, Revit will seem to be unresponsive. To avoid this lag (which only affects the user's first access to a server), the administrator should keep the RSN.ini file up to date.