Programming Guides › Programming Guide for C › Configuring Custom Agent Types

Configuring Custom Agent Types

This section contains the following topics:

Custom Agent Type Overview

Configure an Agent Type

Modify an Agent Type

Custom Agent Type Overview

Using the Agent API, you can develop custom agents tailored to meet the specific needs of your environment. After you have developed the agent, you must configure a new Agent Type for the agent in the Administrative UI.

The Agent Type defines the behavior of an agent. For example, if you developed a custom FTP Agent, you would then need to define an Agent Type for the FTP Agent in the Administrative UI.

Agent Type Worksheet

Before you begin the process of defining a custom Agent Type, you should have a clear understanding of the environment your agent will support. Answer the following questions before following the steps for configuring and agent type.

• Which protocol is going to be protected by this agent—for example, HTTP?
• What are the actions or commands that you want to protect on these resources? Based on the protocol, list the actions you will allow. For example, for an FTP site, you may want to protect GET and PUT.
• What responses do you want the agent to receive? What data types will you want to pass in your responses: string, number, IP address?
  • A response can be a name-value pair. For example:
    time-restriction=yes
  • It can also be a string (personalized greeting) that you want to display to your user—for example, Hello John Smith, where name=John Smith.

After you have answered these questions, you can begin configuring your custom Agent Type.

Configure an Agent Type

To configure an Agent Type

1. Log into the Administrative UI.
2. Click Infrastructure, Agent Type, Create Agent Type.

   The SiteMinder Create Agent Type dialog opens.

3. Enter the name of the new Agent Type in the Name field.
4. Enter a brief description in the Description field.
5. If the new Agent Type is a RADIUS Agent, select the RADIUS Device check box.

   If you select the RADIUS Device check box, the fields in the Agent Type Definition Tab change to the following:

   • Vendor Specific Offset—Enter the Offset value provided by the RADIUS vendor. This is not a required field.
   • IETF Vendor ID—Enter an integer value assigned to a Vendor by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA). This is not a required field. Do not use a value of 2552, because this is reserved for the SiteMinder Agents.
6. If the new Agent Type is not a RADIUS Agent, click Create in the Actions box to specify the actions you want to allow on the resources protected by this agent.
7. Enter a text string that describes an action the new Agent Type will recognize, such as authenticate, then click OK.

   The Agent Action dialog closes, and the new action is added to the list of actions in the Agent Type dialog.

8. To configure attributes for this Agent type, click Create Agent Type Attribute.
9. Click Submit.

Note: The Resource Type is URL. This type of resource is processed in a string-like manner: resource matching can be done based on wild cards and regular expressions.

More information:

Configure the Agent Type Attributes Properties and Values

Agent Type Attributes

The following Agent Type Attributes can be entered when configuring an Agent Type:

• Properties
• Values

Properties

The fields in the Properties group box enable you to define the behavior of a response attribute that can be used when constructing SiteMinder responses.

• Name—Name of the Agent Type Property.
• Description—Brief description of the Agent Type Property
• Data Type—One of the following data types for the value that the Policy Server returns to the agent:
  • String—A string value.
  • Number—A four-byte numeric value in a network byte order.
  • IP Address—A four-byte numeric value in a network byte order that can be interpreted as an IP address.
  • Encrypted String—A string encrypted using RADIUS-like encryption. An encrypted string is used for RADIUS agents.
• Identifier—This is a numeric ID assigned to the attribute, ranging from 1 to 255. For custom Agents, available values are 224-255 and 1-150.

When assigning Response Behavior, consider the following:

• What is the purpose of this response type: authentication or authorization?
• What types of response behavior will this response require: success or failure?
• How many instances of this type of an attribute will you allow in one response: Zero or One or Zero or Many?
• If you are setting up an authorization response type, you can use one of the following two attribute selections: Access Accept or Access Reject.
• If you are setting up an authentication Response Type, you can use any one of the three displayed attribute selections: Access Accept, Access Reject, or Access Challenge.

Values

This group box only appears when you select an attribute Data Type to be a Number in the Agent Type Attributes. You can assign a Symbolic Name and a Numeric Value to a response of such data type. This makes it easier to remember what each numeric value stands for when you create responses using this response type.

Configure the Agent Type Attributes Properties and Values

To configure Agent Type Attributes

1. Click Create Agent Type Attributes in the Agent Type Attributes group box.
2. Enter a name and description for the attribute In the General group box.
3. Enter the data type and identifier in the Properties group box.
4. If the data type is a number, the Values group box appears. Enter the symbolic name and numerical value.
5. Enter the appropriate response behaviors.
6. Click Submit to save your selections.

Modify an Agent Type

To edit Agent Type Properties

1. Log into the Administrative UI.
2. Click Infrastructure, Agent Types, Modify Agent Types.
3. Enter the name of the Agent Type you want to modify and click Search, or just click Search to view a complete list of Agent Types.
4. Select the Agent Type.

   The Modify Agent Type dialog appears.

5. Click the Edit button to the left of the the Action or Attribute you want to modify. You can also delete an action or attribute (Delete button on the right of the listing).
6. Make the changes you require.
7. Click Submit to save the changes.
   The Modify Agent Type dialog appears.
8. Click Submit again to save the changes for the Agent Type.