Learn the system requirements, licensing and installation instructions, and how to configure and maintain BigFix.
Install the BigFix client on every computer in your network that you want to administer, including the computer that is running the console.
You can use the Client Deploy Tool (CDT) to install Windows, UNIX and Mac target computers.
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 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.
The following deployment scenarios illustrate some basic configurations taken from actual case studies.
BigFix runs efficiently using minimal server, network, and client resources.
Before you install the product, decide if you want to do an evaluation or production installation.
You must obtain a license key before you can install and use BigFix.
Before running the installation make sure that you read the following topics and run the requested activities if needed.
Now that you understand the terms and the administrative roles, you are ready to get authorized and install the programs.
After understanding the terms and the administrative roles, you are ready to actually get authorized and install the programs.
To successfully deploy target computers from the Client Deploy Tool, ensure that you satisfy the following prerequisites, depending on the target operating system.
The Client Deploy Tool wizard was introduced with BigFix Version 9.5 Patch 7.
The Client Deploy Tool Fixlets were introduced with BigFix Version 9.5 Patch 5.
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.
console_dir\BESClientDeploy
Deploying the client computers by using the Client Deploy Tool user interface is obsolete.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.
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.
Each time the Client Deploy Tool starts, a log file is created.
Procedure to upload the Client Deploy Tool target log files to the BigFix server.
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.
How to install the client on AIX.
The BigFix client can always be installed by manually running the client installer on each computer.
How to install the Mac client.
As a prerequisite, all Solaris agents must have the SUNWlibC package installed.
You can install the BigFix client manually by running the Client installer on each computer.
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.
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.
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.
The BigFix Administration Tool, also called BESAdmin, is the tool we use to perform configuration changes and maintenance operations.
After having run the installation, make sure that you read the following topics and run the requested activities if needed.
Relays can significantly improve the performance of your installation.
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.
If your enterprise uses a proxy to access the Internet, your BigFix environment can use that communication path to gather content from sites.
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.
Before you begin
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).
This section describes the known limitations and possible workarounds.
This section describes the log files associated with the BigFix components.
To uninstall the BigFix client installed on the various operating systems, see the following sections.