Manual scan configuration

Manual scan configuration is advised for environments with more than a few thousand computers. It requires that analyses are activated and software and capacity scans as well as uploads of their results are scheduled manually after the installation. These actions are necessary to collect data from the computers in your infrastructure and display in on the BigFix Inventory reports. Flexibility of the manual scan configuration allows for avoiding performance issues that might occur when you scan too many computers at the same time.

To manually configure scans, perform the following tasks:
  1. Optional: Divide the computers into groups in the BigFix console.

    In large environments, it is advisable to divide the computers into groups in the BigFix console and configure a separate scan schedule for each group. For a summary of good practices related to scan distribution, see: Distribution of scans for improved performance. For more detailed information, see the Tuning performance.

  2. Set up scans to discover software and hardware discovery.
    1. Activate the analyses.
    2. Install the scanner.
    3. Initiate software scans.
    4. Upload software scan results.
    5. Collect capacity data.

After you successfully schedule software and capacity scans, run the import of data. When the data is displayed on the BigFix Inventory reports, you can further customize the scans. For example, you can exclude directories from software scans or scan remote shared file systems. For more information, see: Advanced scan configuration.