Environment
NetIQ Change Guardian 4.1
NetIQ Change Guardian 4.2
NetIQ Change Guardian 4.2
Situation
Where is the heartbeat value stored for the Change Guardian Windows Agent?
How to increase the heartbeat time for the CG Agent for Windows.
How often does the Windows Agent for Change Guardian connect to the CG Server to heartbeat?
Resolution
The value that the Change Guardian Windows Agent uses to determine how often to query the CG Server for a heartbeat is stored in the Windows Registry. This value should never be edited without a request from Technical Support and creating a backup of the registry. Editing the registry can cause corruption which can lead to a crashed or broken Agent.
To view the value set for the Change Guardian Windows Agent heartbeat perform the following steps.
1.) Logon to the Agent machine and open the Registry. (ensure you have a backup of the registry)
2.) Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\NetIQ\ChangeGuardianAgent\centralConfigInterval
*If the machine is not a 64 bit machine then the Wow6432Node will not exist simply go straight to NetIQ.
3.)The Dword value for centralConfigInterval is used by the CG Windows Agent to calculate how often to query the Change Guardian Server for a heartbeat. The calculation takes this value and performs the heartbeat at plus or minus 50% of the value. For example if the value is 60 then the Agent will randomly calculate the interval to be every 30, 60 or 90 minutes. This random setting helps prevent the CG Server from being overloaded with heartbeat requests all at the same time from the Windows Agents.
4.) To edit the value right click the Dword value centralConfigInterval and select Modify. Then change the numeric value to increase or decrease the heartbeat frequency and select OK.
5.) Once the centralConfigInterval is changed then restart the NetIQ Change Guardian Agent Service in services for the value to take effect.
Cause
The Change Guardian Agent for windows will query the CG Server at a randomly assigned interval based on the heartbeat value. This heartbeat request to the CG Server allows the Windows Agent to check in and download any policy updates as well as other information that may need to be updated. This heartbeat request can be data intensive with the amount of information that is passed between the CG Server and Windows agent. Therefore the Windows Agents are designed to request a heartbeat at different times to ensure the CG Server does not become overloaded.
Additional Information
If the value for the Windows Agent heartbeat is set too low then the frequency in which it contacts the CG Server will increase. This can cause the CG Server to become overloaded and delay event processing and possibly cause the CG Server to have other performance issues. Therefore this value should never be modified without an explicit request from the Technical Support team to prevent possible issues.