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Installation Guide
Learn the system requirements, licensing and installation instructions, and how to configure and maintain BigFix.
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.
Using the Client Deploy Tool
You can use the Client Deploy Tool (CDT) to install Windows, UNIX and Mac target computers.
Client Deploy Tool standalone
Installing the Client Deploy Tool with MSI
As a prerequisite to run this procedure, ensure that you did not install a BigFix Console. If you already installed the Console, you already have the Client Deploy Tool installed in the console_dir\BESClientDeploy folder.

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.
  - Using the Client Deploy Tool
    You can use the Client Deploy Tool (CDT) to install Windows, UNIX and Mac target computers.
    - Target prerequisites
      To successfully deploy target computers from the Client Deploy Tool, ensure that you satisfy the following prerequisites, depending on the target operating system.
    - Client Deploy Tool wizard
      The Client Deploy Tool wizard was introduced with BigFix Version 9.5 Patch 7.
    - Client Deploy Tool Fixlet
      The Client Deploy Tool Fixlets were introduced with BigFix Version 9.5 Patch 5.
    - Client Deploy Tool standalone
      - Installing the Client Deploy Tool with MSI
        As a prerequisite to run this procedure, ensure that you did not install a BigFix Console. If you already installed the Console, you already have the Client Deploy Tool installed in the console_dir\BESClientDeploy folder.
      - Deploying clients from the tool
        Deploying the client computers by using the Client Deploy Tool user interface is obsolete. This option is available only on a Windows system. To install client computers, use either the Client Deploy Tool wizard or the Fixlet from the console.
    - Troubleshooting the client deployment
      After running a Fixlet to deploy target computers using the Client Deploy Tool, if some target computers were not deployed correctly, you can verify some Client Deploy Tool directories and their contents.
    - Log files
      Each time the Client Deploy Tool starts, a log file is created.
    - Uploading the target logs to the server
      Procedure to upload the Client Deploy Tool target log files to the BigFix server.
    - Limitations
      The Client Deploy Tool allows you to deploy BigFix clients on all the platforms supported by BigFix Version 9.5.5. In addition, you can also use the Client Deploy Tool to deploy older BigFix client versions, 9.1 and 9.2.
  - Installing the Client on AIX
    How to install the client on AIX.
  - Installing the Client on Linux
    The BigFix client can always be installed by manually running the client installer on each computer.
  - Installing the Client on Mac
    How to install the Mac client.
  - Installing the Client on Solaris 11
    As a prerequisite, all Solaris agents must have the SUNWlibC package installed.
  - Installing the Client on Windows
    You can install the BigFix client manually by running the Client installer on each computer.
  - Embedding in a Common Build
    If your organization employs a specific build image or common operating environment (COE) on a CD or image that is used to prepare new computers, you can include the Client in this build.
  - Avoiding duplicates when a Client is restored
    When the BigFix client is rolled back or restored from a snapshot, the next time it registers itself with the BigFix server, it receives a new Computer ID. The BigFix client with the old Computer ID becomes inactive because it does not report with the same Computer ID. As a result, the BigFix console shows duplicated entries for the same computer. Additionally, the affected computer loses all information: action history, discovery, and so on.
  - Enabling encryption on Clients
    When installed, you can set up your Clients to encrypt all outgoing reports to protect data such as credit card numbers, passwords, and other sensitive information.
- BigFix Administration Tool
  The BigFix Administration Tool, also called BESAdmin, is the tool we use to perform configuration changes and maintenance operations.
- 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.

Installing the Client Deploy Tool with MSI

As a prerequisite to run this procedure, ensure that you did not install a BigFix Console. If you already installed the Console, you already have the Client Deploy Tool installed in the console_dir\BESClientDeploy folder.

You can use the Microsoft™ Installer (MSI) version of the Client Deploy Tool to interpret the package and perform the installation automatically. This MSI version of the tool (BigFixClientDeploy.msi) is stored in the BESInstallers\ClientDeployTool folder of the Windows server.

To install the Client Deploy Tool, perform the following steps:

Copy the BigFixClientDeploy.msi program and all the related transformation files in the BESInstallers\ClientDeployTool directory of a Windows system.

Run the BigFixClientDeploy.msi program in one of the following ways:

msiexec.exe /i c:\BESInstallers\ClientDeployTool\BigFixClientDeploy.msi TRANSFORMS=TransformList /qn
The /qn command performs a silent installation.
msiexec.exe /i c:\BESInstallers\ClientDeployTool\BigFixClientDeploy.msi INSTALLDIR="c:\myclientdeploytool_install_dir" TRANSFORMS=TransformList
This command installs the tool in the specified directory (INSTALLDIR="c:\myclientdeploytool_install_dir").

Note:

TRANSFORMS=TransformList specifies what transform files (.mst) must be applied to the package. TransformList is a list of paths separated by semicolons. The following table describes the supplied transform files, the resulting language, and the numerical value to use in the msiexec command line.

Table 1. Transform file list
Language	Transform File name	Value
U.S. English	1033.mst	1033
German	1031.mst	1031
French	1036.mst	1036
Spanish	1034.mst	1034
Italian	1040.mst	1040
Brazilian Portuguese	1046.mst	1046
Japanese	1041.mst	1041
Korean	1042.mst	1042
Simplified Chinese	2052.mst	2052
Traditional Chinese	1028.mst	1028

You can find the full list of installation options at the Microsoft™ site Command-Line Options. To create a Group Policy Object (GPO) for the BigFix agent deployments, see the Microsoft™ knowledge base article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/887405.

Start the BES client service.