The major differences between Telnet, SSH, Secure Unix Agent, Shell Script Agent on one hand and the Argent Unix Rule Engine on the other hand are the network traffic direction and the authentication requirements.

In the cases of Telnet, SSH, Secure Unix Agent, Shell Script Agent the Argent Guardian periodically initiates a TCP/IP connection to the Unix server being monitored, then sends the Rule Script to the Unix server and reads back the results.

Thus the Unix server and its firewall must be configure to allow the incoming traffic on a specific port, and Unix server logon and password information must be stored in the Argent Guardian to authenticate each connection.

In contrast, the Argent Unix Rule Engine runs as a daemon on the Unix server and initiates the TCP/IP connection from the Unix server, and make the connection to the Argent Guardian on the well-known port 3191. Thus, only the firewall for the Argent Guardian needs to be configured, and Unix logon and password information is not required.

The Argent Unix Rule Engine behaves very similarly to the Argent Guardian Daughter Scheduling Engine, except that it runs on a Unix server and monitors itself and other systems.

The benefits of the Argent Unix Rule Engine are:

• Firewall friendly with outgoing-only TCP/IP traffic
• Self-contained scheduling information
• Tolerance to network disruption
• Native load distribution
• Customizable bandwidth usage