How the Webagent is loading its configuration at startup?

Products

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

Issue/Introduction

Description:

I want to know how the web Agent is getting its configuration. (ACO and HCO) from Policy Server.

As Described in the Web Agent Configuration Guide, you can configure a Web Agent with one (or a combination of both) of the 2 methods : Central and Local.

In this document we will focus on the sequence for central configuration when the Web Agent will use the Central configuration.

During Host registration, a file SmHost.conf is generated. It contains IP address of the Policy Server that contains the Host Configuration Object (HCO).
The Agent Configuration Object (ACO) contains the the Web Agent configuration. The ACO that should be downloaded is named in the Web Agent.conf

Solution:

At Startup the HCO is loaded from the Policy Servers defined in SMHost.conf file.
Once HCO is downloaded then webagent will download the ACO. Usually first policy server in the HCO should be used to download ACO.
If the 1st Policy Server is not available then policy server will failover if failover is configured or go to the second one in case of load balancingonly.

ACO is loaded during startup when LLAWP process is loaded it is not loaded for each request.
Each child process will get the ACO from the LLAWP process and will not contact the policy server.

Environment

Release:
Component: SMPLC