SMWA unable to initiate/start

Products

• CA Single Sign On Secure Proxy Server (SiteMinder)
• CA Single Sign On Federation (SiteMinder)
• CA Single Sign On SOA Security Manager (SiteMinder)
• SITEMINDER
• CA Single Sign On Agents (SiteMinder)

Issue/Introduction

We're starting our Web Agent and then, the Apache server reports
this error :

[26/Mar/2020:15:02:31] [Error] SiteMinder Agent
        Unable to determine SiteMinder agent configuration file path.
        /etc/httpd/conf/WebAgent.conf

[26/Mar/2020:15:02:31] [Warning] SiteMinder Agent
        SiteMinder agent has encountered initialization errors and will not service requests.

How can we fix that ?

Environment

Web Agent 12.52SP1CR10 on Apache 2.4.16 on RedHat 6;

Cause

At first glance, we can reproduce this issue that way :

- Change the permissions on WebAgent.conf file :

  # chmod 000 /opt/apache2416/conf/WebAgent.conf

- Start Apache with the Web Agent :

  # /opt/apache2416/bin/apachectl start

- The Apache error.log will report the same error :

  [26/Mar/2020:15:54:21] [Info] [CA WebAgent LLAWP] [1260] [LLAWP Monitor: LLAWP has been started.]
  [26/Mar/2020:15:54:21] [Error] SiteMinder Agent
   Unable to determine SiteMinder agent configuration file path.
   /opt/apache2416/conf/WebAgent.conf
  [26/Mar/2020:15:54:21] [Error] SiteMinder Agent
   Failed to initialize the configuration manager.
   LLAWP unable to get configuration, exiting.

- Now, if we change the permissions on the WebAgent.conf :

  # chmod 644 /opt/apache2416/conf/WebAgent.conf

  and we stop and start Apache with the Web Agent :

  # /opt/apache2416/bin/apachectl stop
  # /opt/apache2416/bin/apachectl start

  then Web Agent starts as expected :

error.log :

  [26/Mar/2020:15:58:02] [Info] [CA WebAgent LLAWP] [1557] [LLAWP
  Monitor: LLAWP has been started.]

  [26/Mar/2020:15:58:04] [Info] [CA WebAgent IPC] [1559]
  [CSmSem::getSem] Attempted to attach to non-existent semaphore with
  key 0x6bd11f22

  [26/Mar/2020:15:58:04] [Info] [CA WebAgent IPC] [1559]
  [CSmSem::getSem] Attempted to attach to non-existent semaphore with
  key 0x6bd11f22

  [26/Mar/2020:15:58:04] [Info] [CA WebAgent IPC] [1559]
  [CSmSem::getSem] Created semaphore 229376 using key 0x6bd11f22

  [...]

  [Thu Mar 26 15:58:07.998076 2020] [mpm_event:notice] [pid 1555:tid
  140178290181952] AH00489: Apache/2.4.16 (Unix) OpenSSL/1.0.2k-fips
  PHP/7.2.10 configured -- resuming normal operations

  [Thu Mar 26 15:58:07.998100 2020] [core:notice] [pid 1555:tid
  140178290181952] AH00094: Command line: '/opt/apache2416/bin/httpd'

Resolution

Change the permissions on the WebAgent.conf file in order to make it
readable for owner, group and all others account to fix this issue.