Policy Server Guides › Policy Server Configuration Guide › Agents and Agent Groups › Trusted Hosts for Web Agents › Trusted Host Configuration Settings › TCP/IP Connections

TCP/IP Connections

The trusted host and Policy Server communicate across TCP/IP connections. The number of available TCP/IP connections between the trusted host and Policy Server is determined by the available sockets for the Policy Server's authorization, authentication, and accounting ports.

The number of sockets per port controls the number of simultaneous threads accessing the Policy Server from the Web server. Each user access request is handled by a separate Web server thread, which requires its own socket. The Web server maintains a pool of threads for requests and only creates a new one when there are no more available threads. As traffic increases, the number of sockets per port needs to increase.

There are several settings that affect the TCP/IP connections between the trusted host and the Policy Server.

• Maximum Sockets Per Port

  Defines the maximum number of TCP/IP connections used by the trusted host to communicate with the Policy Server. By default, this value is set to 20, which is generally sufficient for low- and medium-traffic Web sites. If you are managing a high-traffic Web site or if you have defined agent identities for virtual servers, you may want to increase this number.

• Minimum Sockets Per Port

  Determines the number of TCP/IP connections open for the Policy Server at start up. The default value is 2. If you are managing a high-traffic Web site, you may want to increase this number.

• New Socket Step

  Specifies the number of TCP/IP connections that the Agent opens when new connections are required. The default value is 2. Modify the number of sockets that should be added at each required increment if you require more sockets.

Note: More information about these values and how you may have to adjust the values as your SiteMinder environment grows exists in the Policy Server Administration Guide.