To my mind agentM already summarized pretty well :

• Data gathering
• Data processing
• Result feeding

I would just add some features which could make this agent really versatile :

• A kind of scheduler to manage execution of the agents (make hem sleep, wait for another info...)
• Add a 'state' to the agent (beccause your log reader agent shouldn't read logs the same way when everything is normal as when there's an ongoing intrusion...) for managing behaviour AND/OR priority.
• The code of the Agent should be easily AND securely upgradable (to dynamically/remotely add new features)
  
  
  "Only Bad Coders Badly Code In Perl" (OBC2IP)
  

  ---

  In reply to Re: RFC on a system for automated agents by arhuman
  in thread RFC on a system for automated agents by vroom

  Title:
  Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
  and:  <code> code here </code>
  to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":
  
  
  
  

  ---

  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
    • How do I compose an effective node title?
    • How do I post a question effectively?
    • Markup in the Monastery
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:

    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr

  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)

    	For:		Use:
    	&		&
    	<		&lt;
    	>		&gt;
    	[		&#91;
    	]		&#93;

  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.