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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.
Reduce the volume of target connections to the server

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
  - 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

Reduce the volume of target connections to the server

To reduce the load on the server, you can reduce the number of heartbeats that are sent to the server from a target by using properties in the trc.properties file. Use the properties to reduce the volume of unnecessary heartbeats that come from a target, to prevent multiple heartbeats in quick succession, by delaying the actual heartbeat when a heartbeat is triggered, and during the delay merging these into a single heartbeat.

An exception is made for important or urgent heartbeats, for example:

Reporting a new IP address
Reporting the start or end of a remote control session
Reporting status to the server requested by the user
Restart requested by the controller
Target going offline

You can control the delay by using the HeartBeatDelay property.

Table 1. HeartBeatDelay property
Name	Value	Default Value
HeartBeatDelay	Maximum delay in minutes	20

A random factor is also applied to the delay to distribute the heartbeat volume more evenly over time. The target chooses a random delay starting from a quarter of the maximum delay time. With the default setting, the random delay ranges from 5 minutes to 20 minutes.

Note: By default, the very first contact the target makes with the server, after the installation is not delayed so that the target can be registered in the server immediately.

If you are carrying out a mass deployment of targets this might cause the server to be overloaded with registrations. To alleviate this you can use the RegistrationDelay target property to randomly delay the registration and distribute it evenly through the deployment to avoid too many machines trying to register at the one time.

Table 2. HeartBeatDelay and RegistrationDelay properties
Name	Value	Default Value
HeartBeatDelay	Maximum delay in minutes	20
RegistrationDelay	Maximum delay in minutes	0

You can use the following properties to prevent a heartbeat from being triggered for certain events.

Table 3. Heartbeat properties to control heartbeats for certain events
Name	Value	Default value	Description
HeartBeatOnWake	1/0	0	Trigger a heartbeat when the system wakes from standby or hibernation
HeartBeatOnUserChange	1/0	1	Trigger a heartbeat when a user logs on or off
HeartBeatOnChange	1/0	0	Trigger a heartbeat when any of the values included in a heartbeat have changed
HeartBeatOnStop	1/0	0	Trigger a heartbeat when the target is stopped or the system is shutting down