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Installation Guide
Learn the system requirements, licensing and installation instructions, and how to configure and maintain BigFix.
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.
Phase 2 - Preparing the BigFix Virtual Relay template
After installing Tiny Core Linux on the virtual machine, shut down the virtual machine.

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.
- 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.
  - Architectural overview
    Tiny Core Linux (TCL) runs from a RAM copy created at boot time.
  - Phase 1 - Configuring the Tiny Core Linux virtual machine
    In Phase 1, you set up a virtual machine with the Tiny Core Linux operating system that can instantiate the BigFix relay.
  - Phase 2 - Preparing the BigFix Virtual Relay template
    After installing Tiny Core Linux on the virtual machine, shut down the virtual machine.
    - Template setup and customization from a local folder
      How to create and customize the template using a local folder.
    - Template setup and customization from the network
      To use this option, you must have Internet access from the virtual machine on which you are configuring this template.
    - Creating the BigFix Virtual Relay template
      After the virtual machine was powered off, you can generate the virtual machine template.
  - Phase 3 - Configuring the BigFix Virtual Relay instance
    Depending on the choice you made when creating the template (manual deployment or auto-deployment), the method of deploying future virtual relay instances changes.
  - Maintenance
    After completing Phase 3, the Virtual Relay is fully operational and communicates with the BigFix core server.
  - Troubleshooting
    Some known issues.
  - Limitations
    Some known limitations.
  - VMware and Open VM tools
    If during the template creation you specified "y" (yes) to the VMware Tools configuration, only a minimal set of Open VMware Tools was installed, because they are running on a Tiny Core Linux machine with a Text-based user interface only.
  - Auto-Deployment
    To instantiate the virtual relay instance by using the Auto-Deployment mode, you must copy the network.conf file into the /opt/bigFix/config directory of the instance that you are deploying.
  - Modifying the Virtual Relay template
    After you create the Virtual Relay template, you can deploy all the required Virtual Relay instances.
- 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.

Phase 2 - Preparing the BigFix Virtual Relay template

After installing Tiny Core Linux on the virtual machine, shut down the virtual machine.

Edit the properties to connect the BESRelay-x.x.x.xx-tcl.i686.iso file:

Browse the path where you downloaded and saved the ISO image.
Select the BESRelay-x.x.x.xx-tcl.i686.iso file.
Click OK.

Start the virtual machine.

After starting the virtual machine, launch the setup to configure the template from the command line:

Mount the BigFix ISO image by running: mount /mnt/sr0/
Untar the tar file provided in the ISO image by running: tar -xvf /mnt/sr0/bessetup.tar
Launch the setup by running the ./setup command.

The Virtual Machine Template Configuration Tool displays.

Specify if you are using the network or a local folder for the complete template setup:

Note: The entire setup is performed either using the network or a local folder. Both are used to customize the virtual relay template.

If you specified "n" (no), see Template setup and customization from a local folder.

If you specified "y" (yes), see Template setup and customization from the network.