Select checks via task

Follow these steps to run subsets of the checks on your own schedule.

About this task

The default behavior for UNIX Configuration Management deployment is to run the scripts as a single batch. However, you can also run any subset of the checks on your own defined schedule. Each time you do this, the batch that you deploy overwrites any previous batch commands. The runme.sh master script provides a ‘-F’ option, which takes a file name as its argument. It has the following form:

      ./runme.sh -F <FILE>

This command causes runme.sh to perform only the set of checks specified in <FILE>. This is a 7-bit ASCII file with UNIX newlines containing a list of the specific checks you want to run, of the form:

GEN000020
GEN000480
GEN000560

This function allows you to run only the scripts you need when you need them. To enable this function, create a custom action. This action creates the file containing the list of checks and then deploys it to your chosen BigFix clients. This action is similar to creating a custom parameter file.

Procedure

  1. In the BigFix console, go to Tools > Take Custom Action. The Take Action dialog opens.
  2. Click the Target tab and select the endpoints on which you want to create checks.
  3. Click the Applicability tab and click the second button to run this action on computers with a custom relevance clause.
  4. In the text box, enter a relevance clause to identify a subset of computers you want to target. For example, to restrict the action to Solaris 10 systems, enter the following expression:
    name of operating system = “SunOS 5.10 (not exists last
active time of it or (now - last active time of it) > (15 
*minute)) of action
  5. Click the Action Script tab to create a script that copies your file onto the target computers. Click the second button and then enter a script. The script creates the target directory with the file containing the checks to run and then moves the file into the appropriate directory. The following sample script, which you can copy and paste, specifies three checks, GEN000020, GEN000480, and GEN000560.
    // create a script that will create the necessary directory
delete __appendfile
appendfile #!/bin/sh
appendfile mkdir –p ../../scm_preserve/SunOS/5.10
delete createdir.sh
move __appendfile createdir.sh
wait /bin/sh ./createdir.sh

// create the file containing the checks that you wish to run
delete __appendfile
appendfile GEN000020
appendfile GEN000480
appendfile GEN000560
delete ../../scm_preserve/SunOS/5.10/daily.txt
move __appendfile ../../scm_preserve/SunOS/5.10/daily.txt