Configuring the Automation Plan Engine

You can modify the configuration of the Automation Plan Engine. The config.xml configuration file contains properties that you can use to control the Automation Plan Engine behavior.

The config.xml file contains the following properties:

  • The Polling interval for open Automation Plan actions is pe.update.interval. The Automation Plan Engine queries the IBM® BigFix server to find open Automation Plan actions to process. When the most recently retrieved set of open Automation Plan actions are processed, the Automation Plan Engine waits for the time that is specified in the polling interval before querying again.
  • The Numeric argument conversion property is numeric.argument.conversion.enabled. This property is an internal Automation Plan Engine property. Do not change the value of this property.

Specifying the polling interval

To modify the polling interval, edit the pe.update.interval value in the config.xml file.

About this task

The default value for the poling interval, pe.update.interval, is 3,000 milliseconds. If the value of the property in config.xml is missing or invalid, the Automation Plan Engine uses the default value.

If you change the pe.update.interval, the change is applied without restarting the Automation Plan Engine.

Procedure

  1. Open the config.xml file in a text editor. On Linux®, the config.xml file is located in the /var/opt/BESServer/Applications/PlanEngine/config directory. On Windows®, locate the config.xml file, as follows:
    1. Open the Windows registry by running regedit from an MS DOS prompt.
    2. Search for the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\BigFix\Enterprise Server key.
    3. Find the EnterpriseServerFolder value in the appropriate key.
    4. To change the contents of the config.xml file, open the Automation Plan Engine installation directory that is specified in the EnterpriseServerFolder value. Open the Applications\PlanEngine\config subdirectory of the installation directory. Open the config.xml file in a text editor.
  2. Change the pe.update.interval value to the value of the polling interval.
  3. Save and close the config.xml file.

Specifying the logging level

You can change the Automation Plan Engine logging level without stopping and restarting the Automation Plan Engine. For Windows, the Automation Plan Engine log file, pe_console.log, is located in the \BES Server\Applications\Logs subdirectory of the installation directory, for example, C:\Program Files (x86)\BigFix Enterprise\BES Server\Applications\Logs. For Linux, the pe_console.log file is located in the /var/opt/BESServer/Applications/Logs directory.

About this task

You can change the logging level of the Automation Plan Engine to different logging configurations. By default, Automation Plan Engine logs information messages, warnings, and errors. You can set the Automation Plan Engine logging level to DEBUG to log more detailed information about the internal operations of the Automation Plan Engine.

You can change the logging level by editing the log4j.prop file.
Note: Do not uncomment to enable any of the entries in the Local Settings section of the log4j.prop file. If you enable any of these settings by uncommenting them, you might encounter errors.

Procedure

  1. Open the log4j.prop file. On Linux, the log4j.prop file is located in the /var/opt/BESServer/Applications/PlanEngine/config directory. On Windows, locate the log4j.prop file, as follows:
    1. Open the Windows registry by running regedit from an MS DOS prompt.
    2. Search for the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\BigFix\Enterprise Server key.
    3. Find the EnterpriseServerFolder value in the key.
    4. To change the contents of the log4j.prop file, open the Automation Plan Engine installation directory that is specified in the EnterpriseServerFolder value. Open the BES Server\Applications\PlanEngine\config subdirectory of the installation directory. Open the log4j.prop file in a text editor.
  2. To change the logging level, edit the log4j.prop file, specifying the logging level you want. For example, to change the logging level to debug, change log4j.appender.console.threshold=INFO to log4j.appender.console.threshold=DEBUG and log4j.appender.consolefile.threshold=INFO to log4j.appender.consolefile.threshold=DEBUG. Valid thresholds include TRACE, DEBUG, INFO, WARN, ERROR, and FATAL.
  3. Save and close the log4j.prop file.

Results

The Automation Plan Engine automatically includes the logging level change without requiring you to restart the system.