IBM Tivoli Monitoring > Version 6.3 Fix Pack 2 > Administrator's Guide > Agent-based services > Centralized Configuration
IBM Tivoli Monitoring, Version 6.3 Fix Pack 2
Environment variables for Centralized Configuration
Environment variables can be used for customizing the agent environment for Centralized Configuration: to bootstrap the central configuration server; to control central configuration client operations; and, when a monitoring agent acts as a central configuration server, to control operations.
For enterprise monitoring agents, the environment variables are set in the agent's environment file; for system monitor agents, the environment variables are set in the pc_silent_install.txt response file. For more information about installing the system monitor agent, see "Monitoring your operating system via a System Monitor Agent" in the IBM Tivoli Monitoring Installation and Setup Guide.
Bootstrap central configuration server
Upon startup, a monitoring agent first looks for its configuration load list XML file. If the configuration load list does not exist, the agent reviews its environment file for the following variables. The agent constructs the initial, or bootstrap, load list from these environment values to connect to a central configuration server and download a configuration load list.
- IRA_CONFIG_SERVER_URL
- Specifies the server URL. For example, http://9.52.111.99.
- IRA_CONFIG_SERVER_USERID
- Specifies the server user ID. Default: itmuser.
- IRA_CONFIG_SERVER_PASSWORD
- Specifies the user password either in plain text or AES encrypted password string.
- IRA_CONFIG_SERVER_FILE_PATH
- Specifies the path to the configuration load list on the central configuration server. The default is loadlist/@PRODUCT@. See Configuration load list keyword substitution for a list of keywords.
- IRA_CONFIG_SERVER_FILE_NAME
- Specifies the name of the configuration load list file on the central configuration server. Default: cnfglist.xml.
Central configuration client operations
The following agent environment variables affect how the agent operates as a client for Centralized Configuration. Use them to specify a different configuration load list file from the default, how often to connect to the central configuration server to check for updates, and whether to download only the configuration files that have changed since the last time you downloaded or all the files.
- IRA_SERVICE_INTERFACE_CONFIG_LOADLIST
- Use this variable to override the default configuration load list. Specify the full path and file name of the configuration load list. The following configuration load list file names are the defaults, where pc is the two-character product code:
- install_dir\localconfig\pc\pc_cnfglist.xml
- install_dir/localconfig/pc/pc_cnfglist.xml
- IRA_SERVICE_INTERFACE_CONFIG_LOADLIST=PCCFGLST.RKANDATV
- /QIBM/UserData/IBM/ITM/localconfig/a4/a4_cnfglist.xml
- IRA_SERVICE_INTERFACE_CONFIG_INTERVAL
- Specifies how often the agent attempts to check with the central configuration server for updates. Specify the interval in minutes. One day is 1440 minutes; one week, which is also the maximum, is 10080 minutes. Default: 60 minutes.
- IRA_SERVICE_INTERFACE_CONFIG_BYPASS_TIMESTAMP
- When set to N, the agent downloads and replaces only the configuration files that have a newer UTC time stamp than that of the local version. Default: N. Setting this parameter to Y instructs the agent to bypass the timestamp and always download the file after every interval.
- As a best practice, synchronize system times across the network to ensure that any monitoring agents running with their time ahead of the central configuration server do not miss an update if the file is changed within the time difference after download.
- IRA_SERVICE_INTERFACE_CONFIG_BACKUP
- When a new configuration file is downloaded, the agent renames the existing local file to a backup copy by appending suffix 1 through 5 to the file name and moving the file to a backup directory. This variable specifies the number of backup versions to keep. The minimum is 0 for no backup; the maximum is 5 backups. Default: 2 backups.
- IRA_SERVICE_INTERFACE_CONFIG_BACKUP_DIR
- Use this environment variable to establish a different backup directory from the default. These are the default backup directories:
- install_dir\localconfig\pc\backup
- install_dir/localconfig/pc/backup
- RKANDATV DD dataset
- /QIBM/UserData/IBM/ITM/localconfig/a4/backup
- IRA_SERVICE_INTERFACE_CONFIG_MAX_WAIT
- Defines the maximum wait time in seconds for downloading all configuration files specified in the load list from the central configuration repository. The valid time range is between 15 – 300 seconds. Default: 60 seconds.
- IRA_SERVICE_INTERFACE_CONFIG_PASCAP_FACTOR
- central configuration client only. The time multiplication factor that the monitoring agent uses to calculate the Agent Management Services common agent package (CAP) file output delay interval. The delay interval is derived from the KCA_DISCOVERY_INTERVAL environment variable multiplied by this factor. The agent enforces a minimum factor value of 1. Default: 1.5.
- IRA_SERVICE_INTERFACE_CONFIG_POOL_SIZE
- The agent creates a task thread pool to handle multiple load list articles concurrently. The agent puts requests on a FIFO queue served by pool tasks. Default: 10 tasks.
Central configuration server operations
The following agent configuration parameters affect how the agent operates as a server for Centralized Configuration:
- IRA_SERVICE_INTERFACE_CONFIG_HOME
- If an agent is being used as a configuration server, this setting can be used to override the default central configuration repository location. The default location used to place files to be served by the central configuration server is: install_dir/localconfig.
- The web server HTTP file root is defined by the web server administrator and cannot be altered. Relative path specifications such as ../../ to reference artifacts outside of defined repository location cannot be used. In addition, the new repository location cannot be the root directory.
- IRA_SERVICE_INTERFACE_NAME
- Specify the preferred agent service interface name to define a more functionally recognized name to replace the agent generated default name in the format of kpcagent, where pc is the two-character product code, such as kntagent or kmqagent; or pcagent, such as kuxagent02 to identify a second installed UNIX OS Agent instance on a system.
- Default:
system.hostname_pc
hostname_pc
- Example: The default agent-ServicePoint for a Windows OS Agent is: hostname_nt. The URL to connect to a central configuration server on a Windows OS agent running on host system winhost1 is: https://winhost1:3661///winhost1_nt/winhost1_nt. If IRA_SERVICE_INTERFACE_NAME= ConfigServer-A, the URL is https://winhost1:3661///ConfigServer-A/ConfigServer-A
- KDE_TRANSPORT
- Use the KDE_TRANSPORT environment variable to specify a different port from the default 1920 for HTTP or 3661 for HTTPS.
- Do not change the default port settings, especially on multifunction UNIX and Linux systems, because many components might be located on the same system and some of these components might depend on the default values being used for HTTP and HTTPS ports.
- Note: The KDE_TRANSPORT variable supersedes and overrides the KDC_FAMILIES variable. If a KDC_FAMILIES variable exists in the file, copy the KDC_FAMILIES settings that you want to keep to the new KDE_TRANSPORT variable. See the topic on "Controlling port number assignments" on the portal server in the IBM Tivoli Monitoring Installation and Setup Guide.
Problem determination
These diagnostic options can be set for the agent component. The output is the ras1 log file.
- IRA_DEBUG_SERVICEAPI=Y
- Agent component name: Service Interface
- IRA_DEBUG_PRIVATE_SITUATION=Y
- Agent component name: private situation
- IRA_DEBUG_TRANSCON=Y
- Agent component name: Transport Conduit
- KDH_DEBUG=D
- Agent component name: Tivoli Monitoring Service Index HTTP Service.
Parent topic:
Centralized Configuration