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Enable external monitoring with the remote agent

Enable the remote agent on external nodes.

Set up generic server clusters with ports for all of our external nodes.

By installing the mixed server environment, a lightweight Java process called the remote agent runs on the node being used monitored. There is also a plug-in that polls the remote agent for CPU information. The plug-in runs in the on demand router that has the work profiler running.


Tasks

  1. Start the remote agent on nodes to monitor. On a command line for each node, start the remote agent.

    1. Navigate to the directory where the remote agent is installed. For example, type cd <installed_dir>/bin.

    2. Start the remote agent. Run ./startAgent.sh or startagent.bat.

      If we start the remote agent using the startAgent.sh or startAgent.bat script from the bin directory, the Java Runtime Environment (JRE that is bundled with the installer is used. The JRE is installed in the _jvm subdirectory of the _uninstXD directory.

    We can also supply the port number as a parameter to the script if the default port, 9980, is used by another process running on the node. By default, the remote agent can be run by any user. We can limit access to the directory containing the remote agent for increased security.

  2. Optional: Stop the remote agent. To stop the remote agent, use the command window where we started the remote agent. Type the command quit. We can also stop the remote agent by pressing Control-C or using the UNIX kill command if we are running AIX, HP-UX, Linux, or Solaris.

The remote agent sends average CPU utilization, node.speed, number of CPUs, and several other attributes and values to the plug-in that polls the remote agent for CPU information.


Example

We can start the remote agent in any way that a standalone Java program can be started. We can run the remote agent in the background.

On the Windows platform, we can start the remote agent as a scheduled task during system startup.

  1. From Windows, click Start > Sets > Control panel > Scheduled tasks > Add scheduled task.

  2. From the Scheduled Task Wizard, go to WAS_HOME/bin and select startAgent.bat.

  3. Specify when we want to perform the task. For example, choose When my computer starts.

  4. User ID and password for the user to use to run startAgent.bat.

On the Linux or UNIX operating system, add an entry to the /etc/inittab file of the operating system. If we installed the feature in the /opt/WAS60/MixedServer directory, the new entry for the file is: 

was:2:once:/opt/WAS60/MixedServer/bin/startAgent.sh >/dev/console 2>&1
See UNIX manual page on inittab by typing man inittabb.


What to do next

Enable the remote agent is a requirement when routing requests to nodes that are not running Intelligent Management. For more information about routing requests, read about routing requests to external nodes with generic server clusters.


Related:

  • Middleware nodes and servers
  • Routing requests to external nodes with generic server clusters
  • Add middleware servers to configurations