Propagation Hierarchy

To grant authentication to users on the network, each Secondary Server must have the latest copy of the principal database, at all times. Secondary servers obtain the copy of the principal database from the Primary Security Server using the database propagation service.

At predefined intervals, the database propagation service automatically copies database modifications from the primary server to its associated secondary servers. The default propagation interval is 15 seconds.

A secondary server acting as a propagation server can have other secondary servers associated with it in a hierarchical configuration. In this case, a secondary server receiving, through propagation, a copy of database changes from a primary server must then propagate those changes to other secondary servers.

Propagation Relationships

Relationships in a propagation hierarchy are defined in kpropd.ini, a text file, by assigning parent and child labels to servers:

• A parent server is a primary or secondary server that propagates its database to another server.

• A child server is a secondary server that receives the propagated database from another server. A child server may also act as a parent server for a different secondary server.