Approach for managing mobile agents in networks

An approach for managing mobile agents in a network generally involves configuring a mobile agent in a secure manner such that the mobile agent will automatically terminate itself if the mobile agent cannot communicate with a specified entity before moving or the mobile agent cannot successfully communicate with a specified entity within a specified period of time. According to another embodiment, if a management process cannot communicate with a mobile agent within a specified period of time, then the management process attempts to cause the termination of the mobile agent. The management process may contact another management process that has the ability to terminate the mobile agent and request that other management process to cause the termination of the mobile agent. According to another embodiment, the management process may cause the creation and dispatch of a "hunter-killer" mobile agent configured to locate and cause the termination of other mobile agents.