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Remote Control
BigFix Remote Control application helps to communicate between different components, clients, and endpoints within BigFix environment.
Remote Control Administrators Guide
This guide is for users who want to administer Remote Control.
Troubleshooting and Help
Using log files to solve a problem
Obtaining the server log files

Remote Control
BigFix Remote Control application helps to communicate between different components, clients, and endpoints within BigFix environment.
- Release notes
  A summary of changed or new features and enhancements included in BigFix Remote Control.
- Remote Control Installation Guide
  By using Remote Control you can remotely support and control thousands of PCs and servers, on an enterprise scale, from a central location or directly, in peer to peer mode.
- Remote Control Administrators Guide
  This guide is for users who want to administer Remote Control.
  - Set a secure environment
    Set a secure environment when you are using Remote Control.
  - Secure target registration
    To prevent unauthorized targets from registering with the Remote Control server, you can use tokens to authenticate the target.
  - Configure SAML 2.0 authentication on the server
    Remote Control V9.1.3 introduced support for SAML 2.0 authentication on the Remote Control server.
  - Access the server web interface
    After you install the BigFix® Remote Control Server software and the BigFix Remote Control Target software, you can log on to the server application. For more information about installing and configuring the server and target software, see the Remote Control Installation Guide
  - Using the Deployment Status Dashboard
    The Deployment Status Dashboard provides a quick view of the system and brokers health status.
  - Unattended Target Support
    The Unattended Target Support feature allows you to take remote control sessions of targets that are connected through a broker, without the need to provide a connection code. In strict remote control terminology, an unattended target is a managed target that performs Call Home through a broker.
  - Unlocking user accounts
    When a user account is locked, you can unlock the account by using the Unlock locked userid feature.
  - Manage targets and target groups
  - Manage users and user groups
  - Server session policies
  - How session policies are determined
  - Starting a managed session by using an installed controller
    When you start a managed session, you can configure the server to use an installed controller rather than using the Java™ Web Start method. This feature makes starting a session faster and it removes any warning message windows that are displayed while the session is starting.
  - Manage permission sets for temporary access to targets
  - Requests for temporary access to targets
  - Generate custom reports
  - Manage the home page for a user or group
  - Adding tables and columns to queries
  - Configuration and troubleshooting options in the Admin menu
  - Ensure targets are registered correctly
  - Record the session on the target
  - Set up for exporting recordings
  - Audit log distribution
  - Access targets on different networks
  - Editing the properties files
    You can use the properties files in Remote Control to customize your environment, configure LDAP, set debug options, and set controller and on-demand target properties. The files can be edited in the BigFix® Remote Control Server UI.
  - Reduce the volume of target connections to the server
  - Broker configuration
    When you install broker support you can use the installed trc_broker.properties file to configure your environment for using the broker function.
  - Managing brokers
    After installing broker support you can register the broker machines in the Remote Control server. When they have been registered you can view the list of brokers, edit the broker details and delete brokers that are no longer required.
  - Certificate management
    Remote Control uses certificates in the Server and in the Broker to address the authentication and verification required for ensuring secure connections between the different product components.
  - Migrating to a new certificate
    If your existing certificates are due to expire, you can create new certificates. Distribute the new certificates to the relevant endpoints so that they can continue to successfully establish remote control sessions through the broker.
  - Configuring the session connection code
    You can define the number of characters required and the timeout value, for the connection code used when starting a remote control session through a broker.
  - Target registration before a remote control session
    When you have targets that are on the internet or third-party networks and cannot register directly with the Remote Control server you can configure server properties to allow the target to register with the server. When the target registers, you can start a remote control session with the target, by using a broker.
  - Configure target properties
  - Importing data from other sources
  - Database table and column descriptions
  - Troubleshooting and Help
    - Getting Help
    - Using log files to solve a problem
      - Obtaining the server log files
      - Obtaining the controller log files
        For debug purposes, you can create a log file on the controller system in multiple ways.
      - Obtaining the target log files
      - Obtaining the gateway log files
        The gateway log file can be used for debug purposes when you have an issue in your environment and gateways have been configured.
      - Obtaining the broker log files
      - Obtaining the smart card feature log files
        Use the smart card log files for debugging purposes when you use a smart card during a session and encounter an issue.
      - Obtaining the smart card Fixlet log files
        When you run the Fixlets to install or remove the device driver for the virtual smart card reader or the Fixlet to install the certificates, use the following log files for debugging purposes when an error is reported:
    - Recovering when the program is not running
    - Login failure
    - Log distribution task of the scheduler
    - Setting up the Trusted Sites zone
    - Targets unable to contact the server successfully and a session cannot be established with these targets
    - Remotely installed targets cannot contact the server
    - Extending the session timeout value
      When you are logged on to the BigFix® Remote Control Server and there is no activity, you are logged out after a time period. You can increase this time interval.
    - Gray screen on a Windows 2003 system
    - Files not visible during a file transfer session
    - Getting control of a mac OS target after the screen is locked
    - Broker troubleshooting and FAQs
      This section provides some answers to questions that might arise when you are installing or using the broker functions.
    - Target, On-demand Target, Broker, Gateway or CLI fail to install or start on Windows
    - Internet Explorer rendering issue
    - Broker and Gateway upgrade fixlets fail
      Learn how to troubleshoot if Broker and Gateway upgrade fixlets fail with MSI error code 1638.
    - Unattended macOS target goes offline when in sleeping mode
      Learn how to prevent macOS target from going offline when in sleeping mode.
  - Gateway sample scenarios
  - Properties for configuring logging activity
    Use properties to determine what type of information and how much is written to the broker, gateway, and target component log files.
  - Override proxy
    The controller uses the proxy defined at system level by default. In some conditions, this may not be desirable. Creating a file named “override.proxy” in the controller install folder changes the default behavior and the system proxy is ignored
- Remote Control Console User Guide
- BigFix Remote Control Controller Users Guide
- Remote Control Target Users Guide
- Remote Control On-demand Target Guide
  Use Remote Control to start remote control sessions over the internet with targets that do not have the target software installed.
- Remote Control V10 Readme

Obtaining the server log files

About this task

You can use the log file in theBigFix® Remote Control Server program to troubleshoot problems you encounter.

To view a log of all server and database activities, click Admin > View Application Log. The content of the Application Log is displayed on the screen. To see the most recent activities, scroll to the bottom of the file.

Note: From the Admin menu, select Send Application Log, to open or save the application log file, trc.log, for attaching to an email.

Log4j logging

The log4j package is used to provide additional logging information and this can be useful when trying to debug a problem using the application log file. The level of logging can be controlled by the property values in the log4j2.properties file. For more details, see Editing the properties files. The following levels of logging are available:

ALL
DEBUG
INFO . This is the default value
WARN
ERROR
FATAL
OFF

To obtain more information for debug purposes complete the following steps

Procedure

Click Admin > Edit properties file.
Select log4j2.properties from the list.
Set logger.rolling.level=DEBUG,
Set this value to log information from debug messages to fatal messages.
Click Submit.
Click Admin > Reset Application.
Restart the Remote Control- server service.
Perform the steps that are causing a problem with the application.
Click Admin > View Application Log to view the log information or select Send Application Log to save the log file.

Results

There might be multiple copies of trc log files. All of these log files are helpful when debugging a problem and can be sent to the support team when you have a problem. The value of log4j.logger.com.bigfix must be set back to INFO when finished.