Technically, MS does not communicate directly with the PNS host: all communication is done through the PNS Transfer Agent application, which is responsible for transporting configuration files to the managed hosts, running MS-initiated commands, and reporting the firewall configuration and other related information to MS. The PNS Transfer Agent is automatically installed on every PNS host. The communication is secured using Secure Socket Layer (SSL) encryption. The communicating hosts authenticate each other using certificates. For more information, see Section 13.1.1.5, Configuring authentication settings.

Communication between the agents and MS uses TCP port 1311. If PNS and MS is installed on the same host, communication between the transfer agent and the MS server uses UNIX domain sockets.

By default, the MS host initiates the communication channel to the agents, but the agents can also be configured to start the communication, if required.