The Connectors

A connector is an ".hdf" file dedicated to one hardware information source. The purpose of each ".hdf" file is to describe how Hardware Sentry can connect to the hardware information source available on a platform and which information is available through this source.

For example, MS_HW_Director41NT.hdf instructs how to get information from the IBM Director 4.1 Agent and then monitor an IBM xSeries server.

An ".hdf" file can tell the Hardware Sentry engine to do the following actions:

•	Query an SNMP agent (get, get_next, and tables)

•	Execute a WBEM query

•	Execute an OS command

Each ".hdf" file uses a mix of these possible actions with some computing capabilities to make Hardware Sentry gather useful data in a given hardware information source.

The ".hdf" files are located under the "MS_HW_hdf" folder under "%PATROL_HOME%/lib". All ".hdf" files are installed on all platforms.