<![CDATA[pt3agents not picking up credentials from .pf]]>I've set up a test server with a couple of application databases. The _file can-read permissions are locked down so I can't run PT as blank user. I've added the DBs to dblist.cfg and created <friendly name>.pf in $PROTOP/etc for each of the two DBs. The PFs contain -db, -U, and -P params.

If I am reading bin/protop correctly, the existence of etc/<friendly name>.pf takes precedence over a <friendly name> line item in dblist.cfg, at least for interactive PT. I am able to launch PT interactively against both DBs, successfully.

I've set these as monitored DBs in dblist.cfg and they show up in the portal, though with no data. The problem is that the pt3agent sessions appear to be lacking credentials, based on the errors in log/pt3agent.<friendlyname>.log:

** Insufficient access privilege for table _Db. (234)
** /opt/protop/lib/vstlib.p Could not understand line 72. (196)

I've looked through the setup and help docs and I don't see this addressed: how do I pass client startup parameters to a pt3agent? It doesn't seem to be reading the .pf in etc. I need it to run with -U and -P.

]]>https://community.wss.com/topic/6/pt3agents-not-picking-up-credentials-from-pfRSS for NodeWed, 12 Aug 2026 00:09:45 GMTWed, 21 Feb 2018 23:49:45 GMT60<![CDATA[Reply to pt3agents not picking up credentials from .pf on Wed, 14 Mar 2018 17:00:54 GMT]]>Done.

]]>https://community.wss.com/post/45https://community.wss.com/post/45Wed, 14 Mar 2018 17:00:54 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to pt3agents not picking up credentials from .pf on Mon, 26 Feb 2018 14:46:47 GMT]]>That's an interesting scenario. The old approach of a dedicated .pf for each db still works for the interactive ProTop but (so far) has not been adopted for pt3agent. I think it perhaps could be but I'm not sure if there might be any problems with that.

Thinking about it a bit maybe a better approach would be to use multiple .pf files so that the startup would be something like:

pt3agent dbName -pf protop.pf -pf custid.pf -pf server.pf -pf type.pf -pf friendlyname.pf ...

(obviously with "etc/" added and skipping .pf file that don't exist)

That seems like it might be a nicely flexible approach.

]]>https://community.wss.com/post/17https://community.wss.com/post/17Mon, 26 Feb 2018 14:46:47 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to pt3agents not picking up credentials from .pf on Thu, 22 Feb 2018 20:58:39 GMT]]>In that case, I would recommend creating a common "pt3agent" or "protop" user ID, that has read access to your VSTs, for all your databases and specify it in etc/protop.pf.

]]>https://community.wss.com/post/13https://community.wss.com/post/13Thu, 22 Feb 2018 20:58:39 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to pt3agents not picking up credentials from .pf on Thu, 22 Feb 2018 20:15:26 GMT]]>Hi Nectar,

In this particular case, I am; at least so far. So I can take that approach for now to allow me to move forward.

But other applications could be added to this server/PT instance where there would be different credentials. At that point I would want to have a .pf per database, in addition to protop.pf. How should it be configured in that case?

Thanks,

Rob

]]>https://community.wss.com/post/11https://community.wss.com/post/11Thu, 22 Feb 2018 20:15:26 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to pt3agents not picking up credentials from .pf on Thu, 22 Feb 2018 20:09:32 GMT]]>Hi Rob,

Are you using the same -U & -P for all your DBs? If so, you can add these parameters in $PROTOP/etc/protop.pf.

Regards,
Nectar

]]>https://community.wss.com/post/10https://community.wss.com/post/10Thu, 22 Feb 2018 20:09:32 GMT