Setting up communications with remote servers

If you want to manage remote servers — servers on a different network from your BMC Server Automation system or outside your network's firewall, for example — you can set up your Application Server to communicate with those servers through your SOCKS internet protocol proxy servers.

To set up communications through a SOCKS proxy server

1. Develop a policy for routing to the remote servers by identifying the following:
   • The remote servers you want to manage.
   • SOCKS proxy servers to route communications. You should also decide whether or not those servers resolve host names.
   • A way to categorize remote servers so that you can set up rules for routing to them. This categorization can be based on a single (new) server property or a combination of several server properties.
2. Configure Application Servers to route traffic to Network Shell proxy servers. Using a Network Shell proxy server prevents issues that can occur when any type of action causes files to be copied from a server behind one SOCKS proxy to a server behind another SOCKS proxy. For information about Network Shell proxy servers, see Setting up a Network Shell proxy server.
3. Create the proxy server objects and add them to the BMC Server Automation infrastructure. See Creating SOCKS proxy server objects.
4. Use the Network Routing wizard to create a network routing policy and rules for routing communications to servers. See Creating rules for routing to remote servers.
5. Add the remote servers you want to manage. See Adding remote servers.

The following topics provide detailed instructions for setting up remote servers:

• Creating SOCKS proxy server objects
• Creating rules for routing to remote servers
• Adding remote servers