Change How Often an Agent Checks for Policy or Key Updates

Web Agent Guides › Web Agent Configuration Guide › Basic Web Agent Configuration › How to Manage Web Agent and Policy Server Communication › Change How Often an Agent Checks for Policy or Key Updates

Change How Often an Agent Checks for Policy or Key Updates

The Web Agent polls the Policy Server at regular intervals to check for the following items:

Updated management information
Updated policies
Dynamically updated agent keys

You can change this interval according to your needs with the following parameter:

PSPollInterval

Specifies how often (in seconds) the Web Agent contacts the Policy Server to retrieve information about policy changes or dynamically updated keys. Higher numbers (longer intervals) decrease network traffic. Lower numbers (shorter intervals) increase network traffic.

Default: 30

Limit: 1

To change how often a Web Agent checks the Policy Server for updates, change the number of seconds in the PSPollInterval parameter.

Important! Increasing the PSPollInterval parameter also affects how quickly the Agents enforce SiteMinder policy changes. For example, suppose you change a Policy to revoke access for a terminated employee at 10:30, and your PSPollInterval parameter has a value of 3600 (the number of seconds in an hour). The Web Agents would not enforce the changed policy until as late as 11:30.

More information:

Web Agents and Dynamic Key Rollovers

Accommodate Network Latency

When network latency issues exist, the Web Agent cannot connect with the Policy Server. To avoid this problem, use the following parameter in the Agent Configuration Object or local configuration file:

AgentWaitTime

Specifies the number of seconds that the agent waits for the Low-level agent Worker process (LLAWP) to become available. When the interval expires, the agent tries to connect to the Policy Server.

Setting this parameter can help to resolve agent start-up errors that are related to the LLAWP connections. We recommend starting with the default value and then increasing the interval 5 seconds each time until the agent starts successfully.
If you are using local configuration, set this parameter in the WebAgent.conf file instead of the agent configuration object.

Default: 5

Example: Calculate a suggested value with the following formula:

(The_number_of_Policy_Servers x 30) + 10 = value of the AgentWaitTime parameter (in seconds).

For example, if you have five Policy Servers, then set value of the AgentWaitTime parameter to 160. [(5x30) + 10 = 160] (seconds).

Limit: (FIPS-compatability and FIPS-migration modes) minimum of 5.

Limit: (FIPS-only mode) minimum of 20.

Use a higher setting only if network latency issues exist. A high setting possibly causes unexpected web server behavior.

To accommodate any network latency, enable the AgentWaitTime parameter in your Agent Configuration Object or local configuration file. Then specify the number of seconds you want.