Define listening sockets/ports (required)

The Advisor maintains at least two, and up to three, listening sockets/ports, one for Agents to connect to and up to two for load balancers to connect to. There are separate IPv4 and IPv6 listening sockets for load balancers. If your TCP/IP stack is not IPv6 enabled, you will not be able to use the IPv6 listening socket.

The Advisor and Agent statements define addresses and ports on the local system and on remote systems. At times, it can be difficult to remember which statements refer to local sockets and which statements refer to remote addresses and ports.

Tip: Any statement containing the word connection refers to a local socket, and any statement containing the word id refers to a remote address and possibly a port.

Specify the local IPv4 address and port that the Advisor listens on for IPv4 load balancer connections with the lb_connection_v4 configuration statement. The default port for communications with load balancers is 3860.

The lb_connection_v6 statement does the equivalent for IPv6 that lb_connection_v4 does for IPv4. You can specify either or both of these statements. For CINET considerations regarding stack termination, see Configuring one Advisor per sysplex in a CINET environment.

Guideline: To enable movement of the Advisor to another system in the sysplex or to another TCP/IP stack on the same system in the event of failure of the Advisor or its underlying system, use a dynamic VIPA (DVIPA) for the address specified on the lb_connection_v4 and lb_connection_v6 statements. Furthermore, make this DVIPA a unique application-instance DVIPA (defined through VIPARANGE) rather than a multiple application-instance DVIPA (defined through VIPADEFINE), to enable movement of the Advisor if the Advisor itself failed. For CINET considerations with DVIPAs, see Configuring one Advisor per sysplex in a CINET environment.

Restriction: If the Advisor is using IPv6 for the load balancer connections, or if any Agents are using IPv6 to connect to the Advisor, movement of the Advisor is limited to IPv6–enabled TCP/IP stacks.

Specify the local port that the Advisor listens on for Agent connections with the agent_connection_port statement. If the Advisor's TCP/IP stack is IPv6 enabled, the Advisor opens a listening socket for Agents on the IPv6 unspecified address (::) on the port specified by this statement. This enables Agents to connect to the Advisor using either IPv4 or IPv6, and by using any address on the Advisor's system. If the TCP/IP stack is not IPv6 enabled, the Advisor opens a listening socket on the IPv4 unspecified address, 0.0.0.0. This enables Agents to connect to the Advisor using any IPv4 address on the Advisor's system.

Guideline: The port number used on the agent_connection_port statement should not be the same as the port used on the lb_connection_v4 statement or the lb_connection_v6 statement.

Rules:

The port number specified on the agent_connection_port statement must match the port number specified on the Agents' advisor_id statement.
If at least one IPv4 address is specified in the lb_id_list statement, the lb_connection_v4 statement must be specified. Similarly, if at least one IPv6 address is specified in the lb_id_list statement, the lb_connection_v6 statement must be specified.