ftePingAgent: check whether an MFT agent is active

The ftePingAgent command pings a Managed File Transfer agent to determine whether the agent is reachable and, if so, whether it is able to respond to a simple query.

Purpose

Use the ftePingAgent command to check whether a Managed File Transfer agent is reachable and, if so, whether it is able to respond to a simple query along the lines of are you there?. An example output of this command is as follows:

C:\> ftePingAgent AGENT86
5724-H72 Copyright IBM Corp. 2008, 2020.  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
BFGPR0127W: No credentials file has been specified to connect to IBM MQ. Therefore, the assumption is that IBM MQ authentication has been disabled.
BFGCL0212I: Issuing ping request to agent AGENT86
BFGCL0213I: agent AGENT86 responded to ping in 0.094 seconds.

Specify the optional -p parameter for this command only if you want to use a set of configuration options different from your default set. See Configuration options for more information.

Syntax

ftePingAgent

Parameters

-p (configuration options)

Optional. This parameter determines the set of configuration options that is used to issue the request to ping an agent. Use the name of a non-default coordination queue manager as the input for this parameter. The command then uses the set of properties files associated with this non-default coordination queue manager. If we do not specify this parameter, the set of configuration options based on the default coordination queue manager is used. See Configuration options for more information.

-m (queue manager)

Optional. The name of the queue manager that the agent you want to ping is connected to. If we do not specify the -m parameter the queue manager used is determined from the set of configuration options in use.

-w (timeout)

Optional. Specifies that the command should wait for up to timeout seconds for the agent to respond. If we do not specify a timeout, or specify a timeout value of -1, then the command waits indefinitely until the agent responds. If we do not specify this option then the default is to wait up to five seconds for the agent to respond.

If timeout has been specified, ftePingAgent command messages will time out after double the value of timeout rather than going to the designated dead letter queue. The command messages will not time out if the command has been set to wait indefinitely.

-mquserid (user ID)

Optional. Specifies the user ID to authenticate with the command queue manager.

-mqpassword (password)

Optional. Specifies the password to authenticate with the command queue manager. You must also specify the -mquserid parameter. If you specify -mquserid, but do not specify -mqpassword, you will be prompted to supply the associated password. The password will not be displayed.

(agent name)

Required. The name of the Managed File Transfer agent to ping.

-? or -h

Optional. Displays command syntax.

Example

In this example, the command pings the agent AGENT1, which is connected to QM_MERCURY. The command waits for up to 40 seconds for AGENT1 to respond before returning.

ftePingAgent -m QM_MERCURY -w 40 AGENT1

Return codes

0

Command completed successfully. The agent is active and able to process transfers.

1

Command ended unsuccessfully. The command was not able to send a message to the agent.

2

Command ended with a timeout. The command sent a message to the agent, but the agent did not respond within the time.