Servers

The Servers subkey contains information about CS/AIX configuration servers on which the client can access resources. This list should contain the names of the controller configuration server and any backup servers in the same domain as the client. For information about configuring controller and backup servers, see Configuring client/server functions.

Note: The format and meaning of this subkey depends on whether the client is on the same private network as its servers or connecting across a public network using HTTPS, as noted below.
Server1
The Registry data type of this value is REG_SZ.

Specify a server name in one of the following formats:

  • If the client uses HTTPS to access its servers, specify the name of the WebSphere server that provides HTTPS support and the name of the CS/AIX server, in the following format:

    webservername : servername1

    This assumes that WebSphere is set up to use the default port 443 for HTTPS connections. If your network administrator has configured WebSphere to use a different port number, include the port number in the following format:

    webservername : portnumber : servername1

    For more details about configuring WebSphere to support HTTPS connections, refer to IBM Communications Server for Data Center Deployment on AIX Quick Beginnings.

  • If the client does not use HTTPS to access its servers, specify the name of the first server it should try to contact. The webservername and portnumber parameters are not used and should not be specified.
  • If the client is on the same private network as its servers, you can specify that it should find a server running CS/AIX by using a UDP broadcast message to all computers on its TCP/IP subnet (or on all subnets that it can access, if the client computer contains more than one LAN adapter card). To do this, specify * (an asterisk character) instead of a server name.

    This option is available only if the client uses IPv4 addressing. UDP broadcasts are not supported for IPv6.

    The client retries the broadcast every 10 seconds, up to the number of attempts specified by the broadcast_attempt_count parameter, until it contacts a server. If the limit specified by broadcast_attempt_count is reached before a server has been contacted, the client then tries using directed messages to one or more named servers (specified by the following lines of the file).

Note: If you are not using UDP broadcasts, you must use the parameters Server2-Server9 to specify the names of any other servers that this client needs to access. The client can use resources on the servers that are specified in this file, but cannot use resources on other servers.
Server2-Server9
The Registry data type of this value is REG_SZ.

Specify the names of additional CS/AIX servers that contain resources used by this client. Use the same format as for Server1.

If the client has tried to contact a server using a UDP broadcast (or has tried to contact the server specified in Server1), but has received no response, it then attempts to contact the server specified in Server2 using a directed message. If this fails, it tries the server specified in Server3, and so on. These server names are optional, but provide a backup mechanism if the broadcast method of locating a server fails or if the server specified by Server1 is unavailable.

If the client tries all the servers listed without success, it waits for the number of seconds specified by the server_lost_timeout parameter, then restarts the process of trying to contact a server (either with UDP broadcasts or with the first server listed).

The parameters Server2-Server9 cannot be set to * to indicate the use of UDP broadcasts. Only the Server1 parameter can be used to indicate this, because the * value must precede any server names in the file.