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Starting the Striim Agent process on the HP NonStop platform

The agent process (WAGENT) must run at all times to allow the Striim server to make connections and request change data from the HP NonStop platform. The agent can be started from the TACL command prompt as follows:

[PARAM WA-LOGPRIORITY <log-level>]
[PARAM ALLOWED-TABLES <allowed-tables-file-name>]
[PARAM WA-ASSUMED-TIMEZONE <time-zone-code>]
[PARAM WA-CHARSET-FOR-CHAR <charset-name>]
[PARAM WA-CHARSET-FOR-NCHAR <charset-name>]
[PARAM WA-CDC-CPU-LIST "<list-of-CPU-numbers>"]
[PARAM WA-ENCRYPT-ALL {TRUE|FALSE}]
[ADD DEFINE =TCPIP^PROCESS^NAME, CLASS MAP, FILE <TCP/IP-process-name> ]
RUN WAGENT [ / NAME <a-name>, TERM $ZHOME/ ] --agent_port <port-num> --logger_name <ems-collector>

Where:

<log-level> is a number that specifies the highest level of detail for the messages the Striim processes report. Messages at the specified value and below are reported. The permitted values are :

0 FATAL 
1 ALERT 
2 CRIT 
3 ERROR 
4 WARN 
5 NOTICE 
6 INFO 
7 DEBUG 
8 TRACE

The default value is 4, which is WARN, the recommended value for normal use.

<allowed-tables-file-name> is the name of the Edit file you created in step 4 of "Installing the agent." If you do not want to control which files can be accessed by Striim applications, you do not have to specify this parameter.

<time-zone-code> is the code for the time zone used by date values in the files and tables. The valid values (which are not case-sensitive) are:

  • GMT for Greenwich Mean Time

  • LST for Local Standard Time as configured for the NonStop system, ignoring daylight savings time

  • LCT for Local Civil Time as configured for the NonStop system, including daylight savings time (default used if this PARAM is not specified)

<charset-name> is one of the character set names listed in Encoding of character fields and specifies the encoding used for character fields. See that section for a full description of the character set names and the PARAMs with which they are used.

<list-of-CPU-numbers> is a list of CPU numbers in which CDC processes may be started. The point of this is so that when more than one CDC process is running, the CDC processes do not all have to run in the same CPU.  There might be multiple CDC processes due to having multiple TQL applications running or a single TQL application that uses parallel audit trail reading . The CPU numbers may be separated by spaces or commas. The number of a CPU that is down is accepted, but a number that is larger than the highest numbered CPU is not accepted and causes an error and termination of WAGENT. The CPU numbers in the list are used in round robin fashion when choosing the CPU in which the next CDC process is started, skipping any CPU that currently is down. If the WA-CDC-CPU-LIST PARAM is not present, all CDC processes are started in the CPU in which WAGENT is running. The same CPU number may appear in the list more than once. This can be used to use some CPUs. more often than others for CDC processes. See HP NonStop reader properties for a description of how to request parallel audit trail reading.

PARAM WA-ENCRYPT-ALL TRUE encrypts messages between Striim and WAGENT (and all processes started by WAGENT) for applications or flows created WITH ENCRYPTION (see CREATE APPLICATION ... END APPLICATION ). The encryption key is set automatically by Striim. When WA-ENCRYPT-ALL is true, attempting to run an application created without encryption will fail with an error. Similarly, if WA-ENCRYPT-ALL is omitted or FALSE, attempting to run an application created with encryption will fail with an error. To run applications both with and without encryption, start two WAGENT processes, one with WA-ENCRYPT-ALL TRUE and the other without, and specify the port number for the appropriate WAGENT process in the HP NonStop reader properties in the application.

Messages related to this encryption may appear in either the NonStop system or Striim server logs, and do not always specifically mention encryption. When WAGENT expects an encrypted message and decryption fails, or when it expects  an unencrypted message and fails to parse a GPB object, it writes a warning to its log. If Striim sends a start command that WAGENT does not recognize due to mismatched encryption settings, Striim will write an error to its server log and the application will not start.

<TCP/IP-process-name> is the name of the TCP/IP process that the WAGENT and CDC processes should use. The ADD DEFINE command may be omitted if the default process, $ZTC0, is the one that should be used. The ADD DEFINE commands for other DEFINE names that specify TCP/IP settings, such as =TCPIP^HOST^FILE, TCPIP^NETWORK^FILE, etc., also may be included here if the Striim programs must use non-default settings.

<a-name> is a Guardian process name to be used to identify the WAGENT process.

<port-num> is the port number the agent process listens on for connections from the Striim server.

<ems-collector> is the name of an EMS collector process where the agent and CDC processes will write any informational and error messages.

We recommend that you name the agent process to aid process identification, though that is not required.

The Striim processes do not write any messages of their own to the process' home terminal, but if the C++ runtime library reports an error or if one of the processes abends and produces a saveabend file, the messages about those events will be sent to the home terminal. Further, when the agent starts one of the CDC processes, if the agent's home terminal no longer exists, starting the CDC process will fail. For both these reasons, it is best not to let the agent inherit a telnet session's home terminal, but specify a device or process that always exists, such as $ZHOME or a VHS process, as the TERM argument of the RUN command for WAGENT. Using a VHS process would allow you to control where the messages are logged, which probably would make it easier for you to find them, should some serious error occur in a Striim component.