Limitations

Review the list of BigFix Inventory limitations.

Installation and configuration

  • Support for Distributed Server Architecture (DSA) is limited to one backup server

    Distributed Server Architecture (DSA) allows for setting up multiple BigFix servers that can replicate data between each other. If the main server is disabled, a backup server takes over its role ensuring continuous work. BigFix Inventory supports a setup in which one of the BigFix servers that is defined as a datasource is designated as a backup server. If this server is running, BigFix Inventory works. However, if this server fails, imports of data also stop working until the server is up and running. BigFix Inventory server does not automatically switch to use the secondary BigFix server.

  • Microsoft SQL Server used as the BigFix database cannot be case sensitive

    Only case insensitive Microsoft SQL Server database is supported.

  • Changing the host name of the BigFix server is not supported

    The host name of the BigFix server cannot be changed because it is recorded in the license certificate during the installation. To change the host name of BigFix, reinstall the application.

  • Creating clones of virtual machines that are running is not supported

    Cloning virtual machines that are running might produce unexpected results in BigFix Inventory.

  • Language of the installer depends on the system locale

    To run the BigFix Inventory installer in a language other than English, system locale must be set to that language.

  • Permissions that are defined for the Administrator role cannot be changed

    The Administrator role is assigned all available permissions. It prevents from creating separate Administrator roles, for example one responsible for data, the other for users.

Using BigFix Inventory

  • The scanner does not scan paths that contain certain whitespace characters and other special characters
    The scanner does not scan file paths that contain the following whitespace characters:
    • Carriage return (CR, character code 13)
    • Line feed (LF, character code 10)
    • Whitespace characters whose decimal codes are in the following ranges: 0- 8, 11-12, 14-31
    It also does not scan shared disks whose mount point paths contain an asterisk (*) or a question mark (?). To avoid a situation in which software is not discovered, ensure that files paths in your infrastructure do not contain the unsupported characters.
  • Software installed in the /Libraries directory on Mac OS X is not discovered

    Only software that is installed in the /Applications directory is discovered.

  • Information about Mac OS X computers is not presented on the IBM Capacity Data Completeness widget

    Computers running on Mac OS X are not included in the computer count on the IBM Capacity Data Completeness widget. It happens because the types of scans that produce results displayed on this widget are not run on Mac OS X. However, these computers are included in the computer count on the Scan Health widget. It causes that the overall number of computers displayed on each widget is different.

  • Calculating utilization of the Managed PVU metric requires an additional configuration of BigFix Inventory

    Managed PVU metric is based on the number of processor cores available on computers that are managed by an application, for example by BigFix Spectrum Protect for Virtual Environments. Calculating utilization of the Managed PVU metric is not available out of the box. To calculate its utilization, place an appropriate isotag file on the computers that are managed by the particular application.

  • Creating contracts and catalog customizations for IBM products is limited

    IBM provides catalog content that allows for discovering practically all IBM products. Due to internal reasons, entries for some products are duplicated in this catalog. Thus, it is not possible to modify the correct entry and creating contracts for IBM products might not work correctly. Moreover, BigFix Inventory supports contracts only for installation-based licenses which are not applicable to the majority of IBM products. Creating contracts for IBM products and customizing BigFix products in the software catalog is discouraged.

  • Signatures with the same GUID and different rules might be overwritten

    When you import a signature that has the same GUID as a signature that already exists in BigFix Inventory and the new signature has a different number of rules than the existing one, the signatures are not merged. Instead, the new signature overwrites the existing one. The problem does not occur when the imported signature has a different or no GUID.

  • Software is detected twice if a custom catalog entry is the same as an entry in the BigFix catalog or an entry generated from an isotag file

    If you create a custom catalog entry which has the same publisher name, software name, and version as an entry in the BigFix catalog or an entry generated from an isotag file, both the custom and original entry is visible as detected.

  • slmtag files with overlapping entries are not supported

    Start time of one entry in an slmtag file cannot overlap with the previously reported period. It should start at the end time of the previous entry or later.

  • Adding excluded directories fails on Solaris when the number of characters in the task exceeds 1000

    When you use the Add Excluded Directories task and the specified list of directories is longer than 1000 characters, the task fails on Solaris.

  • Specific start time cannot be set for actions by using REST API

    BigFix REST API requires that the start time for an action is specified as an offset from the time on the BigFix server. The solution is prone to network latency problems. It might cause that the action starts at time different from the intended one.

Reports

  • Reports show the current PVU per core value instead of the value that occurred during the license peak time

    IBM PVU Subcapacity and All Metrics reports as well as the audit snapshot show the current PVU per core value instead of the value that occurred during the license peak time. It does not affect the calculation of PVU subcapacity and full capacity. To display the value that occurred during the license peak on the reports, change the start date of the report to a more recent date. Try changing the date until you find the date when the PVU per core value changed. It allows you to have consistent information displayed on the reports.

  • Data on the Software Installations report is inconsistent with data on other reports

    Information on the Software Installations report regarding software installed on shared disks or components installed multiple times on the same computer is inconsistent with information on other reports. The inconsistency occurs also when a column on a report links to a filtered view of the Software Installations report such as in case of the Installed Software column on the Computers report. It happens because the Software Installations report is based on the old data model that does not take shared disks and multiple component instances into account.

    9.2.15 Starting from application update 9.2.15, the old Software Installations report is deprecated and substituted with a new report view. It is based on a new data model and consistent with other reports. The limitation no longer applies.

  • Scheduling multiple report e-mails requires ensuring an appropriate interval between each report e-mail

    When you schedule multiple reports to be sent to your email, you must ensure that they are not being sent at the same time. The reason is that each report is managed in a different session that starts when the report is being sent, and ends when the action is completed. Each closed session, however, terminates also other sessions, in this case the delivery of other reports. Therefore, the schedule must be different for each report. The sufficient interval is about 5-10 minutes. You can specify it while setting the start time.

  • Audit Trail limitations

    Audit Trail report cannot be filtered by the Details column and does not contain information about uploads and imports of part numbers. What is more, audit trail does not contain information about software classification when either component, product or both are non-IBM.

  • Non-IBM software discovered both on a local system and a shared disk is shown only as installed locally

    When non-IBM software is installed on a local system and on a shared disk, it is shown only as installed locally on the Software Classification panel.

  • Filtering computers based on their IP addresses does not work under certain conditions

    When you filter your computers based on their IP addresses and specify the relation as ends with, no computers are displayed even if some computers match the criteria. To work around this issue, you can choose other relations, such as contains or begins with. This limitation concerns all reports.

  • Filtering by installation path does not work under certain conditions

    When the installation path is specified as report filtering criteria, and contains -1, for example: C:\My_App -1, the filter returns inaccurate results. The filter returns not only the content of the specified directory, but also all non-IBM products that are installed on the computer.

  • Filtering causes that the content of the window is scrolled up

    When you filter a report by using the in set filter, the content of the entire window is scrolled up to the top. You have to scroll down to add another filter.

  • Incorrect number of rows can be displayed on reports that are saved as PDF files

    The number of rows that is displayed in the upper right corner of a PDF file can differ from the number of rows that is displayed on the user interface. This problem was only encountered with Mounted Shared Disks column in the Computers report because it contains multi-line entries.

  • Time values are provided in different time zones on the user interface and in PDF or CSV reports

    On some reports, time values are expressed in the local time zone when the report is viewed on the user interface but in the UTC time when the report is exported to a PDF or CSV file. What is more, the format of the date and time is hardcoded in PDF reports.

  • Signature definitions are not available on the Catalog Audit report for custom signatures that were deleted

    When you delete a custom signature from the software catalog, definition of this signature is not available on the Catalog Audit report. The definition section is empty.

  • Non-English characters are incorrectly displayed on the Package Data report for IBM i systems

    If the name of a package that is discovered on an IBM i system contains non-English characters, the characters are incorrectly displayed on the Package Data report.

  • Sorting by name does not work on the predefined reports.

Security

  • SP800-131a compliance cannot be enabled with Microsoft SQL Server

    If the SP800-131a cryptographic standard is enabled in strict mode in BigFix Inventory and the enhanced security mode is configured on the BigFix and MS SQL servers, connection between the BigFix Inventory server and the SQL Server cannot be established.

  • The pvk format of the encrypted private key is not supported

    You can use an encrypted private key in the openSSL or pkcs8 formats.

  • Key pair generated for BigFix Inventory can be used for Web Reports only if the private key is not password-protected

Other

  • The To Do List displays the names of outdated scanning actions always in English.
  • Catalog search does not work during the import of data

  • Fixlet for distributing scanner catalogs to the endpoints is not translated

    The Catalog Download (Version: version) fixlet is a custom fixlet that is not delivered with the BigFix Inventory fixlet site. Thus, it is not translated.

  • Process IDs are not present in audit snapshots

  • Eastern Arabic numerals are not supported