What does the NetIQAgent Knowledge Script do? (NETIQKB37024)

The NetIQ Agent is an agent (or daemon) that runs in the background and is used as an intermediary by the WebSphereAppSrvUNIX Managed Object to make web requests (such as to the perfservlet, to retrieve performance metrics) and to execute WebSphere administrative utility scripts (such as wscp for WebSphere 4.x, and wsadmin for WebSphere 5.x).  The NetIQAgent Knowledge Script can be used to stop or start the NetIQ Agent.

(Note: The NetIQ Agent being discussed here is different than the AppManager Unix Agent, which is responsible for running Knowledge Scripts for all modules installed on the server.  The AppManager Unix Agent is needed by all AppManager modules, and should not be stopped unless you wish to prevent any Knowledge Scripts from running.)

When the NetIQ Agent is stopped using the NetIQAgent script, the agent is marked as disabled, and will not be restarted automatically.  Since the agent must be running in order most Knowledge Scripts to be able to retrieve data or execute WebSphere administrative utilities, stopping the NetIQ Agent should not be done unless you do not intend to run Knowledge Scripts for a long period of time.  Stopping the NetIQ Agent will free up memory used by the agent.

If you stop and disable the NetIQ Agent, and later wish to start it running again, you can do so either by running the NetIQAgent script, or by rerunning the Discovery script.