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Installation Guide
Learn the system requirements, licensing and installation instructions, and how to configure and maintain BigFix.
Installing on Linux systems
After understanding the terms and the administrative roles, you are ready to actually get authorized and install the programs.
Installing and configuring MS SQL
Starting from BigFix Version 11 Patch 1, the Linux Server installation introduces the support of Red Hat 9 x86 64-bit with Microsoft SQL Server database.

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 V11 gathers data from BigFix clients deployed with different code pages and languages. It encodes all data into UTF-8 format, and reports 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 and configuring DB2
    BigFix 11 Server installation on Linux has IBM DB2 as a prerequisite. It must be installed before the BigFix Server is installed.
  - Installing and configuring MS SQL
    Starting from BigFix Version 11 Patch 1, the Linux Server installation introduces the support of Red Hat 9 x86 64-bit with Microsoft SQL Server database.
  - Downloading BigFix
    Download BigFix from HCL License & Delivery Portal (Flexnet).
  - Performing an evaluation installation with DB2
    To install a BigFix server with an evaluation license on Linux with DB2, perform the following steps:
  - Performing an evaluation installation with MS SQL
    To install a BigFix server with an evaluation license on Linux with MS SQL, perform the following steps:
  - Installation Command Options
    You can run the Production or Evaluation installation in interactive or silent mode. You can use a single installer for different components.
  - Installing the components
  - Installation Folder Structure
    After the BigFix installation, you can see the following folder structure.
  - Configuration, Masthead, and Log Files
    At the end of the installation you can find the following BigFix files containing the settings of the installed components and the installation messages.
  - Managing the BigFix Services
    Procedure to manage the services.
  - Changing the database password
    How to change the database password.
  - Changing the DB2 port
  - Removing the BigFix components from Linux
    You can have one or more BigFix components installed on a local system and you can decide to remove one or all of them at the same time.
  - DSA on Linux
- 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.
- 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 and configuring MS SQL

Starting from BigFix Version 11 Patch 1, the Linux Server installation introduces the support of Red Hat 9 x86 64-bit with Microsoft SQL Server database.

BigFix Platform Version 11 Patch 1 supports the configurations shown below:

Microsoft SQL Server 2022 installed on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 8 and 9
Microsoft SQL Server 2019 installed on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 8
Microsoft SQL Server 2019 and 2022 installed on Windows.

Note that the Enterprise and Standard editions are recommended.

Note: Only the SQL Authentication is supported on the BigFix Linux Server with the Microsoft SQL database.

Note: DSA environments are not supported on the BigFix Linux Server with the Microsoft SQL database.