System and method for determining and manipulating configuration information of servers in a distributed object environment

A computer system in a distributed object programming environment includes a number of host computers providing services to clients on a network through internally stored servers. Various types of configuration information for each server are available to clients through persistent server administrators, which are objects containing such information about individual servers. A server administrator can store such information as startup execution definitions, saved program definition, object interfaces and implementations, reaping, tracing, and logging configuration data. Being persistent and external to the server, the server administrator can manipulate and determine its information about a server in response to client requests without starting up the server, thereby facilitating system administration.