backup remote agents

Hi
I have a master scheduler and two remote agents. The second agent is essentially DR for the other via the GUI option to run the job on a backup remote agent. If I set a job to execute on the primary RA and it fails over (or not), and then as a notification action run a script to harvest some files produced on that agent, how can I best tell the script which remote agent the files will be located on?

I've though of using setremotevar to set a global var on the master scheduler to indicate that, but I think I'll have the same problem with job sec being on that I had with FileTransfer in a previous recent post.

Well, that's the only straightforward way as I can see. I still think that the issue with the back link is not the security, but something else. Try pinging the server on port 1096 from the agent computer and see if you get any response.

As an alternative, you can make the notification script to parse job log and from the log figure out which agent was used. The tricky part is how to pick the right record from the log. Somehow you will need to read it until you find the last record for the same job with a message like Agent WHATEVER contacted" From there you can get the actual agent name.

The connectivity is unrestrained for now; I'm doing this in a dev environment and there is no firewall in between the two machines.

If it's not job sec related then how come it works when I turn job sec off? I think it's quite logical that remote commands sent to a master scheduler should require authentication otherwise that would be a big fat security hole....:-)'

I would really prefer to look into getting the remote command execution working as it's a much more elegant solution that sorting through the schedule.log especially considering it's not split into different logs for different jobs.

For reference :-)

c:\>portqry -n 10.14.16.101 -e 1096
....
TCP port 1096 (unknown service): LISTENING

I didn't realize that you could actually connect when the security was disabled. That surely proves that enabled security mode is the root of the issue.

In case, let's consider that back link is not an option. We are then left with a few choice all of which is how to push the file back from the agent to the server without a need for the server to know which of 2 agents was used to run the job.

Here are a couple of ideas. Assuming that the file is not very big you can email it to some specially configured email account and than have the server grab that email. The server doesn't need to know which agent put it there, and in case if it needs to know you can have the agent write in the email message its name. Disadvantages of this method are obvious. With built it methods you would need a second job or event to get the email, as there is no direct MailRead command or something like that available in JAL. A workaround would be to use VBScript or external program to get the email for you.

Second method is to load the file into some database staging table, pushing it from the agent side, but then pulling it from the database on the master side. I am not a big fun of multiple database connections and creating additional dependencies, but this could be a solution if you have an always-on database at your disposal.

Third method is to try to get the file from both agents. In the worst case, when you can connect to both agents and find the same file in both places, you can compare file contents or file date and pick the most recent.

And finally the forth methods is to install 24x7 RAS server on the agent system instead of the regular agent (or in addition). You can use it to read files on the agent from scheduler local jobs as if they were local files. That's right. I mean local jobs running on the scheduler system accessing files on the agent system as local files without use of any network shares or drive mapping. For details, see RAConnect, RARunAndWait, RAFileRead and so on. You can develop a script trying to make a connection to the first agent and if fails connect to the second. Since all the processing is done in a single script running on the scheduler, you can full control over "if … then" logic and always know which agent you are connected to.

Where can I get the installer for the RAS server? We have a site licence so I assume it's included in that.

There are almost a dozen of different versions available for different Unix and Linux platforms. There is also a universal Java based version that can run on most platforms including Windows. If you simply want to try it, you can get an evaluation copy here http://www.softtreetech.com/24x7automation/download/ra_server_eval/ra_eval.htm
Your site license includes all 24x7 RAS servers. Please contact support and ask for the version that you need.

Ok Thanks for that I will try one or two of these options.

Can I suggest the job security blocking back calls be submitted as a bug report to the devs; it would be useful to have.

I've posted this as a bug. It might be reclassified later as an enhancement request as this is likely by design. Perhaps it may require adding new commands or options for providing user credentials for authentication with the server.

How can I configure and run the java ra server on windows? Instructions for unix are easy to find but a simple java -jar ra_server.jar doesn't work and I couldn't see anything in the doco about it.

It appears that link points to a version pre-configured for Linux/Unix systems. There is a separate package available for Windows. I will have it copied to the web server later today and add a new download link to the referenced web page.

We haven't forgotten about this issue. We are still working on it.

The version for Windows has been finally repackaged and setup for public download from the web site. You can find it here http://www.softtreetech.com/24x7automation/download/ra_server_eval/ra_eval.htm Use the last download link, close to the bottom of the page.

So I've installed this and I'm trying to test the connection via the 'test connec' button in the remote agents section of the master sched and I get "Connection to remote host prodexternal failed, Request terminated abnormally"

Do I still need to do this?

Trace stuff;

DPB01 Connection(00ACFBE8): ConnectToServer : application(10095), location(10.14
.16.109), driver(WinSock). ... (00000000)
SMI02 Connection(00ACFDA8): ERROR OCCURRED: Distributed Communications Error: Re
cv call failed with the error EOF, (3A0) (8004200D)
DPB02 Connection(00ACFBE8): DisconnectServer: ... (00000000)
SMI02 Connection(00ACFDA8): ERROR OCCURRED: This connection object is not connec
ted to a server. (80042007)
DPB02 Connection(00ACFBE8): DisconnectServer: FAILED (80042007)
SMI02 Connection(00ACFDA8): ERROR OCCURRED: The request caused an abnormal termi
nation, the connection has been closed. (80042008)
DPB01 Connection(00ACFBE8): ConnectToServer : application(10095), location(10.14
.16.109), driver(WinSock). FAILED (80042008)
SMI02 Connection(00ACFDA8): ERROR OCCURRED: The connection to the server has bee
n lost (8004206E)

and the ra server is running with the command line C:\ra_server>server.bat -p 10095 -s