Agent Configuration

Use this page to control and configure the DS Agent.

The functionality available on the Agent Configuration page will depend on the rights of the current identity and the version of NDS® that you are looking at.

Agent Information
Select this option to view the connection information for your server.

Partitions
Select this option to view the replicas on the server you are communicating with.

Replication Filters
Select this option to view the replication filters configured for the specified NDS agent. NDS eDirectory™ 8.5(build version 85.xx) is the first NDS version to implement a feature known as Filtered Replicas. A description of what Filtered Replicas are, why they are used, and how to configure them is covered in the eDirectory Administration Guide in the Managing Partitions and Replicas section.

Agent Triggers
Agent triggers allow you to initiate certain background processes. Most triggers are equivalent to using a SET DSTRACE=*option command as specified below.

Janitor
On the janitor interval, the following tasks are performed:

On the cleaner interval, the janitor will update the status of NCP™ servers that it knows about, and it will purge expired dynamic bindery entries.

Purger
This trigger purges all entries and attributes whose modification time is less than the current purge time. The purge time is advanced after all servers in a replica ring have seen the given change. This trigger is equivalent to using the SET DSTRACE=*J command.

Limber
This trigger checks for tree renames, address changes, and keeps a local cache of information about its own NCP server object up-to-date. This cache is kept because a given NCP server cannot be counted on to contain a replica of its own object. On the limber interval, the cache is kept up-to-date by contacting a real replica containing this server's object. Among other things, this cache contains information about index definitions and predicate statistics settings. Details about errors occurring in the limber process can be found through the Agent Process Status page in iMonitor or by using DS Trace with the limber flag set. This trigger is equivalent to using the SET DSTRACE=*L command.

Assume All Servers Up
The DS Agent will put servers that it cannot communicate with into a "bad address" cache. This is done to prevent needlessly slowing down background processes which need to communicate with a server that currently cannot be communicated with. Items in this cache are expired every 30 minutes. Use this trigger to get the DS Agent to assume that all servers it needs to communicate with are up. In other words, using this trigger will clear the bad address cache. This trigger is equivalent to using the SET DSTRACE=*A and SET DSTRACE=*U commands together.

Replication
Use this trigger to initiate outbound object synchronization. This trigger is equivalent to using the SET DSTRACE=*H command.

Schema Synchronization
Use this trigger to initiate outbound schema synchronization. This trigger is equivalent to using the SET DSTRACE=*SS command.

Reference Check
Use this trigger to start the process that maintains and expires backlinks and maintains and updates Dynamic Reference Links (DRLs). This trigger is equivalent to using the SET DSTRACE=*B command.

Background Process Settings
Allows you to modify the interval at which certain background processes run. These settings are equivalent to using the SET DSTRACE=!option command.

Agent Synchronization
Lets you disable or enable inbound or outbound synchronization. You can specify in hours the amount of time you want synchronization disabled.

In Novell® eDirectory 8600 or later, you can control the number of threads being used for outbound synchronization and whether you want to synchronize changes by the traditional "by partition" method or by the new "by server" method. Normally, manual configuration of the synchronization method is not required because NDS will automatically choose the method based on the number of replicas and replication partners.

Database Cache
Lets you configure the amount of database cache used by the DS database engine. Various cache statistics are also provided to assist you in determining whether you have an appropriate amount of cache available. Having an inadequate amount of cache may severely impact your system's performance.

If the database cache settings have not been set by the administrator and made permanent, then the DS Agent will automatically adjust the cache settings. At system startup, the DS Agent will start with a temporary hard limit. Later, after all system services have been given a chance to start up, the DS Agent will switch to dynamic adjust mode.

Login Settings
Lets you disable the queuing of login updates. You can also increase or decrease the amount of time between updates if updates are enabled.

The latest versions of NDS 8 implement a performance enhancement for login speed. This enhancement queues up changes that, in previous versions of NDS, were required to be done at login time while the user waited. Any change to the NDS database requires a lock, so during peak usage periods, login times could be lengthier and more unpredictable depending on how many requests needed the database lock at any given time. By removing this lock requirement and queuing login updates, login speed is much faster and more predictable.

This option lets different NDS environments control this queuing behavior. In some environments, the data queued is extremely important and must be written to the database immediately. The user must then wait while the updates take place. In other environments, this data is not used at all and can be omitted. The default behavior should be adequate for most environments.

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