Apache or Agent appear to restart once agent is installed.

Products

• CA Single Sign On Secure Proxy Server (SiteMinder)
• CA Single Sign On SOA Security Manager (SiteMinder)
• CA Single Sign-On

Issue/Introduction

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.

Environment

Release:
Component: SMAPC