4.2.1 Environment Group

The environment group controls the behavior of the Master Agent. This group contains the following two variables:

• poll-interval - this field contains values in seconds and indicates that the Master Agent performs activities other than receiving/sending SNMP messages after the specified interval; it finds out if there is a change in the resource file (discovering if all the agents are responding) and performs other routine housekeeping activities

• max-agent-time-out - the value of this field is specified in microseconds; it signifies the maximum allowed time-out a subagent may request during registration; for example, when the Master Agent sends a request to a subagent, it waits for a time_out to receive the response; this time-out may be specified in the registration file or by using dynamic registration; if an agent sets this time-out too high, it creates problems for the Master Agent and other agents; to avoid such a problem, the Master Agent must specify a maximum value for the Master Agent to wait for a response from the subagent; this maximum value of time-out is specified using this variable.