Chapter 14. Running the NetSolve Agent

After compiling the agent as explained in the Section called Installation on Unix Systems using ns_install in Chapter 13, the executable of the NetSolve agent is located in:

$NETSOLVE_ROOT/bin/$NETSOLVE_ARCH/

The proper command line for this program is

NS_agent [-l logfile]

When invoked with no arguments, a stand-alone agent is started. This agent is now available for registrations of NetSolve servers wanting to participate in a new NetSolve system. After servers are registered, client programs can contact this agent and have requests serviced by one or more of the registered servers.

The -l option specifies the name of a file to use for logging purposes.

UNIX> NS_agent -l /home/me/agent_logfile

This file is where the agent logs all of its interactions (and possibly errors) since it is a daemon with no controlling terminal and therefore has no way to do this otherwise. This log file also produces very useful information about requests, among other things, that helps administrators know how their NetSolve system is being used. If no -l option is specified, the default log file is $NETSOLVE_ROOT/nsagent.log. This means that successive runs of the agent with no specification of a log file will overwrite the original log file, so if the information is needed, it must be copied to another file.

To terminate an existing agent (or query an existing NetSolve system), the user should refer to the NetSolve management tools, particularly NS_killagent, as outlined in Chapter 16.