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Installation Guide
Learn the system requirements, licensing and installation instructions, and how to configure and maintain BigFix.
BigFix Administration Tool
The BigFix Administration Tool, also called BESAdmin, is the tool we use to perform configuration changes and maintenance operations.
BESAdmin Windows GUI
The Installer automatically creates the BigFix Administration Tool when it installs the other components of the Console program.

Installation Guide
Learn the system requirements, licensing and installation instructions, and how to configure and maintain BigFix.
- Introduction
  BigFix aims to solve the increasingly complex problem of keeping your critical systems updated, compatible, and free of security issues. It uses patented Fixlet technology to identify vulnerable computers in your enterprise. With just a few mouse-clicks you can remediate them across your entire network from a central console.
- BigFix Platform Unicode Support Overview
  BigFix Platform V10 gathers data from BigFix clients deployed with different code pages and languages, encode the data into UTF-8 format, and report it back to the BigFix server.
- Sample deployment scenarios
  The following deployment scenarios illustrate some basic configurations taken from actual case studies.
- Requirements and assumptions
  BigFix runs efficiently using minimal server, network, and client resources.
- Types of installation
  Before you install the product, decide if you want to do an evaluation or production installation.
- Managing licenses
  You must obtain a license key before you can install and use BigFix.
- Before installing
  Before running the installation make sure that you read the following topics and run the requested activities if needed.
- Installing on Windows systems
  Now that you understand the terms and the administrative roles, you are ready to get authorized and install the programs.
- Installing on Linux systems
  After understanding the terms and the administrative roles, you are ready to actually get authorized and install the programs.
- Installing the clients
  Install the BigFix client on every computer in your network that you want to administer, including the computer that is running the console.
- BigFix Administration Tool
  The BigFix Administration Tool, also called BESAdmin, is the tool we use to perform configuration changes and maintenance operations.
  - BESAdmin Windows GUI
    The Installer automatically creates the BigFix Administration Tool when it installs the other components of the Console program.
    - Masthead Management
      Click the first tab to view the Masthead Management dialog.
    - System Options
      The second tab opens the System Options dialog.
    - Advanced Options
      The third tab opens the Advanced Options dialog.
    - Replication
      The fourth tab opens the Replication dialog.
    - Encryption
      The fifth tab opens the Encryption dialog. Use this dialog if you want that the Client encrypts reports to be sent to the server.
    - Security
      Click the sixth tab to open the Security dialog.
    - Computer Remover
      Click Run Now in the BES Computer Remover section to remove computers.
    - Audit Trail Cleaner
      Use this tool to clear historical data, used as audit trail, from the bfenterprise database. The audit trail contains deleted and previous versions of Fixlets, tasks, baselines, properties, mail boxes, actions, and analyses.
    - Property ID Mapper
      After updating a property you must run the Property ID Mapper tool to update the PropertyIDMap table of the BFEnterprise database with the corresponding changes.
  - BESAdmin Windows Command Line
    The installation automatically downloads the BigFix Administration Tool program BESAdmin.exe, in the %PROGRAM FILES%\BigFix Enterprise\BES Server directory.
  - BESAdmin Linux Command Line
    The BigFix Server installer places the script to run the BigFix Administration Tool, BESAdmin.sh, in the /opt/BESServer/bin directory.
  - Logging Cleanup Tasks Activities
    You can run the cleanup tasks, on the BigFix Server.
- Post-installation configuration steps
  After having run the installation, make sure that you read the following topics and run the requested activities if needed.
- Managing relays
  Relays can significantly improve the performance of your installation.
- Introduction to Tiny Core Linux - BigFix Virtual Relay
  Follow the step-by-step sequence of operations needed to build the virtual machine, from the downloading of the ISO image to the complete setup and configuration of the BigFix Virtual Relay.
- Setting up a proxy connection
  If your enterprise uses a proxy to access the Internet, your BigFix environment can use that communication path to gather content from sites.
- Running backup and restore
  You can schedule periodic backups (typically nightly) of the BigFix server and database files, to reduce the risk of losing productivity or data when a problem occurs by restoring the latest backup.
- Upgrading on Windows systems
  Before you begin
- Upgrading on Linux systems
  Before you begin
- SQL Server parallelism optimization
  The performance of an SQL Server database instance can often be improved by small tweaks. Performance might also be hindered by simple oversights. In fact, some SQL Server parallelism settings have suboptimal default values. Moreover, they have to be re-tuned after an hardware upgrade. Other issues might arise from inadvertent hardware configurations, especially when SQL Server is hosted on a virtual machine (VM).
- Known limitations and workarounds
  This section describes the known limitations and possible workarounds.
- Logging
  This section describes the log files associated with the BigFix components.
- Uninstalling the BigFix client
  To uninstall the BigFix client installed on the various operating systems, see the following sections.

BESAdmin Windows GUI

The Installer automatically creates the BigFix Administration Tool when it installs the other components of the Console program.

This program operates independently of the Console and is intended for Administrative Operators only. You can find it from the Start menu: Start > All Programs > BigFix > BigFix Administration Tool. To run the program, you must first browse to the private key (license.pvk).

You can also change your administrative password through this interface. After you have selected the private key file, click OK to continue. You must supply your private key password to proceed.

Note: When you change the private key password you change only the password of the local file; the other DSA BigFix servers are not updated. They continue to use their own license file and password unless it is replaced from the changed license file.

Use the BigFix console to perform the user management tasks.