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Remote Control
BigFix Remote Control application helps to communicate between different components, clients, and endpoints within BigFix environment.
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.
Overview of the Remote Controlsystem
How to use the guide

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.
  - Audience
  - Versions
  - Terms used in this guide
  - Overview of the Remote Controlsystem
    - How to use the guide
    - Remote Control operating requirements
  - Get started
    Now that you understand the terms and components available in Remote Control, you can identify which components you need to install:
  - Install the Remote Control components
    The Remote Control components can be installed in two ways. If you have access to the BigFix® console, use a deployment fixlet to install the components.
  - Utility for extracting the component installation files
    Remote Control provides a utility that you can use to extract the installation files that are required for each component.
  - Enable secure target registration
    To prevent unauthorized targets from registering with the Remote Control server, you can enable the secure registration feature and use tokens to authenticate the target.
  - Install the driver for smart card authentication
    The BigFix® Remote Control Target provides an installation option to install a virtual smart card reader driver. You can also install the driver by running a fixlet in the BigFix console.
  - Manage the component services
    After you install the Remote Control components, if you change their configuration, you can stop, start, or restart the component services.
  - Enabling email
  - Configure LDAP
  - Configure TLSv1.3
  - Federal information processing standard (FIPS 140-2) compliance in Remote Control
    The US Federal information processing standard 140-2 (FIPS 140-2) is a cryptographic function validation program that defines security standards for cryptographic modules that are used in IT software.
  - NIST SP800-131A compliance in Remote Control
    Remote Control version 10.0.0 components can be configured for NIST SP800-131A compliance.
  - Verifying the server installation
  - Recover from installation errors
  - Uninstall the components
  - Upgrade from previous versions
  - Maintaining the target installation
  - Properties that can be set in the target configuration
    You can configure target properties either during or after installation. The operating system on the target system determines which properties can be configured. The target properties determine the actions that can be carried out during a peer-to-peer session. If you set a server URL and set the Managed property to Yes, the actions are determined by the policies that are set on the Remote Control server.
- Remote Control Administrators Guide
  This guide is for users who want to administer Remote Control.
- 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

How to use the guide

The process of getting Remote Control up and running varies, depending on your network environment and the management granularity you want to achieve. The installation guide focuses on three types of deployments:

Peer to peer: Is the simplest scenario and therefore ideal for small deployments. All targets are in network sight of the controllers and there is no requirement to centrally manage the controller policies.
Intranet managed: Are most appropriate in a complex network infrastructure that requires the deployment of gateways to traverse firewalls, or there is a requirement for strict policy control and centralized auditing.
Managed: With support for internet sessions where at least one broker must be installed in an internet-facing computer so that it is visible to targets outside the controller's network sight.

For the sake of readability and generality, the installation guide assumes the following restrictions:

Each Remote Control server must have access to one of the supported database servers. The database can be located locally on the server computer or remotely on a separate server. The supported database systems are DB2, Oracle, and MS SQL. It is also possible to install the server by using the embedded Derby database that is provided by the installer. However, this configuration is not supported for production deployments.
In managed environments, each controller can make an HTTP or HTTPS connection to the Remote Control server.
In managed environments, each Remote Control target computer in the network must be able to make an HTTP or HTTPS connection to a server, a gateway, or a broker on the specified ports.

If your network configuration does not match any of the scenarios in that chapter, contact a support technician for more options.

The initial deployment of a minimal managed Remote Control system (server and a few targets) can take approximately 1 hour to complete.

Several steps in the Remote Control installation depend on the completion of prior steps. For this reason, it is recommended that you follow the guide in the order presented.