Management Agent

For SSH Tectia Manager to be able to perform management operations on the managed hosts, a Management Agent and an initial configuration block (ICB) need to be installed on each target host.

The Management Agent is an agent-type software component that runs transparently in the background and performs management actions (for example, upgrade, configuration update, log gathering) on the SSH Tectia software running on the host. Management Agents connect to the Management Server via the management connection, by default port 17235.

The ICB contains all information required by the Management Agent to connect to the Management Server for the first time. The ICB is a file created by the Management Server, and the ICB needs to be downloaded and included in the Management Agent installation package.

The Management Agents are deployed to the target hosts using a suitable third-party deployment systems such as:

Microsoft SMS
Active Directory
IBM Tivoli
Other software deployment systems (e.g. in-house tools).

In case a centralized deployment system is not available, the Management Agents can be installed manually:

from a network drive
from a CD-ROM
as a workstation disk image.

It is recommended to perform the deployment in batches of manageable size (a few hundred hosts at a time). This makes troubleshooting easier if problems occur during the deployment.

When the Management Agent is installed on the managed host with a valid initial configuration block (ICB), the host automatically signs on to the Management Server and becomes visible in the host views. There is no need to manually enter host entries to the Management Server.