Description:
SiteMinder APACHE 2.0 WebAgent, Version 6.0 QMR05
We have seen customers open cases numerous times regarding the following messages appearing in the logs which they think is the agent restarting:
Agent Framework plug-in 'SM_WAF_HTTP_PLUGIN' initialized. Description 'SiteMinder Agent HTTP Plug-in'.
and
Agent Framework plug-in 'SM_WAF_HTTP_PLUGIN' shutdown.
Solution:
Assuming you re running in worker mode, this is a sample section of the relevant configuration (from httpd.conf):
<IfModule worker.c> StartServers 2 #MaxClients 150 MaxClients 350 MinSpareThreads 25 MaxSpareThreads 75 ThreadsPerChild 25 MaxRequestsPerChild 0 </IfModule>
This setup will create at maximum load MaxClients/ThreadsPerChild processes, or 350/25 or 14 processes. The web server does not have a maximum request threshold (MaxRequestsPerChild is 0). However, it will shut down idle child processes until the number of remaining processes falls within the boundaries set by MinSpareThreads and MaxSpareThreads, or in this case at maximum 3 processes (for a completely idle system). Every time one of those processes is shut down the agent within the process will also be shutdown and you will see a message in the log.
This behavior is not a crash condition but is normal behavior of an Apache Web Server.
For more information on how Apache manages child processes see
http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/mod/worker.html.