Viewing running agents

Depending on the version of IBM® Rational® Test Control Panel that you are using, you have different options to view agents that are currently running. You can view the agents and the routing or recording rules if the security settings are enabled for you to view them.

You can perform the following operations on the agents and on the engines running the agents:

About this task

Rational® Integration Tester Agent engines run stubs that were published to Rational® Test Control Panel. You must install a Rational® Integration Tester Agent engine on each system where you want to run stubs and there must be at least one Rational® Integration Tester Agent engine in an environment. Each Rational® Integration Tester Agent engine must register with a Rational® Test Control Panel instance so that the engine can accept requests to run stubs.

Procedure

  1. Log in to Rational® Test Control Panel.

    The Rational® Test Control Panel landing page is displayed.

  2. To view all agents that are registered with the current Rational® Test Control Panel instance, click the Infrastructure icon image of the infrastructure icon. or navigation link.

    The Infrastructure Dashboard is displayed. Any Rational® Integration Tester Agent or proxy registered with visible domains and that is currently running is displayed.

  3. Expand the agent card to view details of the agent under different tabbed sections.
    Table 1. Details of the agent in the Infrastructure Dashboard
    Tab Description
    Details
    Displays information about the following details:
    Parameter Description
    Capabilities Displays the configured capabilities of the agent.
    Config Location Displays the location where the Agent.config file resides.
    Log File Location Displays the location where the log file resides.
    Version Displays the version of the Rational® Test Control Panel on which the agent is registered.
    System Displays the details of the system hosting the Rational® Test Control Panel.
    Ports Displays the port number configured for communication between the agent and Rational® Test Control Panel.
    Attributes By default, the operating system of the machine that hosts Rational® Test Control Panel is displayed. You can customize the attributes. For more information, see Defining custom attributes and instance name for a running agent.
    Note: If you have added an attribute for a scheduled test, the attribute is displayed in the Details panel for a running agent and is not removed from the display when the agent is disconnected from Rational® Test Control Panel. You can use the attribute in filters as the attribute is available in the system. The attribute is not removed from the system until a system restart.
    Engines
    Displays the following information about the engines:
    • Domain, Environment, Identifier, Process ID, Number of stubs are displayed in sequence, separated by commas in a parenthesis for each engine. You can hover over the item to view the hover message about the item. You can view these details without having to expand the panel for each engine.
    • Details about the engine when you expand the engine panel, as described in the following table:
      Parameter Description
      Identifier A unique value or name that identifies the instance of the engine running on the agent.
      Domain The domain under which the virtualized service is published to in Rational® Test Control Panel.
      Environment The environment under which the virtualized service is published to in Rational® Test Control Panel.
      Project Location Displays the location where the project run by the engines reside.
      Log Location Displays the location where the log file resides.
      Process ID Displays the operating system's unique process ID for the engine process running on the agent.
      Stubs Displays the name of the published stubs run on the engines. You can open the stub in the Environments dashboard by clicking the stubs listed.
    Activity Log

    Lists the log of the activities in a tabular view. Details displayed are about the date and time of the activity, the system running the agent, the log level set for the agent, and the message for the activity.
    To view all Rational® Integration Tester Agents running for a specific environment or domain, you must use the Search icon to find the list of relevant agents.
    Note: The Agent console output is not viewable in the Rational® Test Control Panel. Therefore, you must view the console output of an agent on the system where it is running.

    To view details about any routing rules defined for the agent, see Viewing recording or routing rules.

Defining custom attributes and instance name for a running agent

The operating system upon which the agents run is the only attribute that is available by default. You can define custom attributes for a running agent and also configure the instance name for an agent.

Procedure

Modifying the Agent.config file
  1. Insert attributes in the agentAttributes> section of the Agent.config file.
    The Agent.config file is located at agent_installation directory>\config.
Modifying the start-stop-stub.xml file when you are using the Ant client
  1. Specify a comma-separated list of attributes in the attributes property of the <startStub> task element.

    The sample start-stop-stub.xml file that is available in the AntClient.zip tool package can be used to set the attributes property. Complete the following steps to set the property:

    1. Open the start-stop-stub.xml file for editing and specify the comma-separated list of attributes against the attributes property.
    2. On the Ant command line, run the following command:

      ant -f start-stop-stub.xml -Dattributes=<comma-separated list of attributes>

      For example, ant -f start-stop-stub.xml -Dattributes="Windows,My Attribute".

    Note: Starting from 9.1.1, the Ant Client file is renamed to AntClient.zip from RTCPAntClient.zip.
Configuring the instance name
  1. Configure an instance name for each Rational® Integration Tester Agent that is registered with Rational® Test Control Panel by uncommenting and editing the identifier name setting in the configuration file of the agent and then restart the agent.

    Assign a name to identify a specific agent when there are two or more agents of the same type registered with Rational® Test Control Panel.

Viewing the stub from the engines section

You can open the running stub in the Environments dashboard when you are viewing agents in the Infrastructure dashboard and you want to perform operations on the running stub containing the agent without navigating to the Environments dashboard and looking up the stub.

Procedure

  1. Log in to Rational® Test Control Panel.

    The Rational® Test Control Panel landing page is displayed.

  2. To view all agents that are registered with the current Rational® Test Control Panel instance, click the Infrastructure icon or navigation link.

    The Infrastructure dashboard is displayed. Any Rational® Integration Tester Agent or proxy registered with visible domains and that is currently running is displayed.

  3. Expand the AGENT.
  4. Expand the Engines tab.
    Note: Details about the engine such as Domain, Environment, Identifier, Process ID, Number of stubs are displayed in sequence, separated by commas in a parenthesis for each engine. You can hover over the item to view the hover message about the item. You can view these details without having to expand the panel for each engine.
  5. Click the engine running the stub.
  6. Click the stub listed in the Stubs field.

    The action displays the Environments Dashboard with the selected stub in focus.

    Note: The Identity column shows the Identifier for agents and proxies, that was configured in the agent or proxy configuration file. If not configured, the Identity column displays the hostname of the machine that is running the agent or proxy.

Removing an agent

You can remove an agent when Rational® Test Virtualization Server, Rational® Performance Test Server, or probe agents are disconnected that remain in the Disconnected state in the Infrastructure dashboard. You must remove the agents manually as they are not removed automatically.

Procedure

  1. Log in to Rational® Test Control Panel.

    The Rational® Test Control Panel landing page is displayed.

  2. To view all agents that are registered with the current Rational® Test Control Panel instance, click the Infrastructure icon or navigation link.

    The Infrastructure dashboard is displayed. Any Rational® Integration Tester Agent or proxy registered with visible domains and that is currently running is displayed.

  3. Remove the agents individually by using the Delete icon displayed for a disconnected agent on the Infrastructure dashboard.
    In contrast, HTTP, TCP, and other proxy agents remove themselves from the Infrastructure dashboard automatically after a minute of being in the Disconnected state.
    Note: If any Rational® Test Virtualization Server, Rational® Performance Test Server, or probe agent reconnects without changing its configuration (even after a restart), its status is changed to Connected. That is, a new row is not created on the Infrastructure dashboard and the old row on the Infrastructure dashboard is reused. However, if the configuration of any Rational® Test Virtualization Server, Rational® Performance Test Server, or probe agent was changed before restarting, a new row is created on the Infrastructure dashboard and the old row is also visible on the Infrastructure dashboard with the status of Disconnected.

Stopping an engine running on an agent

You can stop the engine running on an agent from the Infrastructure dashboard when you want to terminate a running test that is using the engine.

Procedure

  1. Log in to Rational® Test Control Panel.

    The Rational® Test Control Panel landing page is displayed.

  2. To view all agents that are registered with the current Rational® Test Control Panel instance, click the Infrastructure icon or navigation link on the Rational® Test Control Panel landing page.

    The Infrastructure dashboard is displayed. Any Rational® Integration Tester Agent or proxy registered with visible domains and that is currently running is displayed.

  3. Expand the agent card to display all the attributes defined for the registered agent under the Details section.
  4. Click the Engines section.
  5. Click the engine name to expand the Engines section.
  6. Click Stop.
    Note: You must stop all stubs that are running on the engine to prevent the stubs from restarting after the engine is stopped by selecting the Stop the stubs associated with this engine? check box.
  7. Click Stop to stop the engine and the stubs running on the engine.