Installation and Upgrade Guides › Web Agent Installation Guide for Apache-based servers › Dynamic Policy Server Clusters

Dynamic Policy Server Clusters

Earlier versions of CA SiteMinder® agents did not automatically discover when Policy Servers were added or removed from a cluster. The agents recognized the changes only after their respective web servers were restarted.

CA SiteMinder® 12.51 supports dynamic Policy Server clusters. Agents automatically discover Policy Servers that are added or removed from an existing cluster when dynamic Policy Server Clusters are enabled.

For example, suppose that your agent connects to a cluster of the following Policy Servers:

• 192.168.2.100
• 192.168.2.101
• 192.168.2.103
• 192.168.2.104

Suppose that you later decide to remove the server 192.168.2.103 to upgrade its operating system. In this situation, enabling dynamic Policy Server clusters lets your agents recognize the change in the membership of the cluster without restarting.

Restart your web server if you do any of the following tasks:

• Change the configuration of an existing Policy Server (using the configuration wizard).
• Create a Policy Server cluster.
• Delete a Policy Server cluster.
• Change the values for any of the following Policy Server settings:
  • EnableFailOver
  • MaxSocketsPerPort
  • MinSocketsPerPort
  • NewSocketStep
  • RequestTimeout

Connect a Web Agent to a Dynamic Policy Server Cluster

You can connect a Web Agent to one or more dynamic Policy Server clusters by modifying the SmHost.conf file on your web server.

Follow these steps:

1. Open the following file with a text editor:

   web_agent_home\config\SmHost.conf
   

   web_agent_home

   Indicates the directory where the CA SiteMinder® agent is installed on your web server.

   Default (Windows 32-bit installations only): C:\Program Files\CA\webagent

   Default (Windows 64-bit installations only): C:\Program Files\CA\webagent\win64

   Default (Windows 32-bit applications operating on 64-bit systems [Wow64]): C:\Program Files (x86)\webagent\win32

2. Do one of the following tasks:

If this Web Agent has never been connected to dynamic cluster of Policy Servers before, create a line (anywhere in the file) with the following text:

enableDynamicHCO="YES"

• If this Web Agent has previously been connected to a dynamic cluster of Policy Servers, change the value of the existing enableDynamicHCO parameter from "NO" to "YES".

1. Save the SmHost.conf file, and then close the text editor.
2. Restart your web server.

   The Web Agent is connected to dynamic Policy Server clusters.