Creating a Node Agent

To create a node agent, run the asadmin command create-node-agent locally on the machine on which the node agent runs.

The default name for a node agent is the host name on which the node agent is created.

If you’ve already created a node agent placeholder, use the same name as the node agent placeholder to create the associated node agent. If you have not created a node agent placeholder, and the DAS is up and reachable, the create-node-agent command also creates a node agent configuration (placeholder) on the DAS.

For a complete description of the command syntax, see the online help for the command.

The DAS and a node agent might be configured to communicate securely. In this situation, when the node agent is started, it must validate the certificate that the DAS sends to the node agent. To validate the certificate, the node agent looks up the certificate in the node agent's local truststore , which is protected by a master password. To enable the node agent to be started without prompting the user for a password, save the node agent's master password to a file when you create the node agent. If you do not save the node agent's master password to a file, the user is prompted for the master password whenever the user starts the node agent.

In some situations you must specify the name of a host that can be reached through DNS. For more information, see To Create a Node Agent for a DNS-Reachable Host.

To Create a Node Agent

1. Type the following command:

   asadmin create-node-agent --host das-host --port port-no --user das-user [--savemasterpassword=true] nodeagent

   To enable the node agent to be started without prompting the user for a password, save the node agent's master password to a file. To save the node agent's master password to a file, set the --savemasterpassword option to true in the command to create the node agent.

   If you set --savemasterpassword to true, you are prompted for the master password. Otherwise, you are not prompted for a password.

   --host das-host

   Specifies the name of the host where the Domain Administration Server (DAS) is running.

   -port port-no

   Specifies the HTTP/HTTPS port number for administering the domain.

   --user das-user

   Specifies the DAS user.

   nodeagent

   Specifies the name of the node agent that you are creating. This name must be unique in the domain.

Example 8–1 Creating a Node Agent

asadmin create-node-agent --host myhost --port 4848 --user admin nodeagent1

This command creates a node agent that is named nodeagent1. The DAS with which the node agent communicates is running on the machine myhost. The HTTP port for administering the agent's domain is 4848. The name of the DAS user is admin.

To Create a Node Agent for a DNS-Reachable Host

The host where the DAS is running must be reachable through DNS in the following situations:

• Domains cross subnet boundaries, that is, the node agent and the DAS are in different domains, for example, sun.com and java.com.

• A DHCP machine is being used whose host name is not registered in DNS.

1. In the create-domain command to create the domain, specify the --domainproperties domain.hostName=das-host-name option.

   das-host-name is the name of the machine where the DAS is running.

2. In the create-node-agent command to create the node agent, specify the following options:

   • --host das-host-name, where das-host-name is the DAS host name that you specified in Step 1. This option corresponds to the agent.das.host property in the file as-install/nodeagents/nodeagentname/agent/config/das.properties.

   • --agentproperties remoteclientaddress=node-agent-host-name, where node-agent-host-name is the host name that the DAS uses to connect to the node agent. This option corresponds to the agent.client.host property in the file as-install/nodeagents/nodeagentname/agent/config/nodeagent.properties.

Specifying the Host by Updating the hosts File

Another solution is to update the hosts hostname/IP resolution file specific to the platform so the hostname resolves to the correct IP address. However, when reconnecting using DHCP you might get assigned a different IP address. In that case, you must update the host resolution files on each server.