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Installation Guide
Learn the system requirements, licensing and installation instructions, and how to configure and maintain BigFix.
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.
Architectural overview
Tiny Core Linux (TCL) runs from a RAM copy created at boot time.

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 V9.5 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.
- Sample deployment scenarios
  The following deployment scenarios illustrate some basic configurations taken from actual case studies. Your organization might look similar to one of the examples below, depending on the size of your network, the various bandwidth restrictions between clusters and the number of relays and servers. The main constraint is not CPU power, but bandwidth.
- 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 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.
  - Architectural overview
    Tiny Core Linux (TCL) runs from a RAM copy created at boot time.
  - Phase 1 - Configuring the Tiny Core Linux virtual machine
    In Phase 1, you set up a virtual machine with the Tiny Core Linux operating system that can instantiate the BigFix relay.
  - Phase 2 - Preparing the BigFix Virtual Relay template
    After installing Tiny Core Linux on the virtual machine, shut down the virtual machine and edit the properties to connect the BESRelay-x.x.x.xx-tcl.i686.iso file.
  - Phase 3 - Configuring the BigFix Virtual Relay instance
    Depending on the choice you made when creating the template (manual deployment or auto-deployment), the method of deploying future virtual relay instances changes.
  - Maintenance
    After completing Phase 3, the Virtual Relay is fully operational and communicates with the BigFix core server.
  - Troubleshooting
  - Limitations
  - VMware and Open VM tools
    If during the template creation you specified "y" (yes) to the VMware Tools configuration, only a minimal set of Open VMware Tools was installed, because they are running on a Tiny Core Linux machine with a Text-based user interface only.
  - Auto-Deployment
    To instantiate the virtual relay instance by using the Auto-Deployment mode, you must copy the network.conf file into the /opt/bigFix/config directory of the instance that you are deploying.
  - Modifying the Virtual Relay template
    After you create the Virtual Relay template, you can deploy all the required Virtual Relay instances.
- 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
- Upgrading on Linux systems
- 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

Architectural overview

Tiny Core Linux (TCL) runs from a RAM copy created at boot time.

Besides being fast, Tiny Core Linux protects system files from changes and ensures a pristine system on every reboot. Tiny Core Linux is easy, fast, simple to be renewed, and stable.

The TCL solution is a mini Linux distribution, which provides the following advantages:

A minimal set of services installed by default.
The capability to easily and quickly customize the base core system with new extensions.

To have a BigFix Virtual Relay up and running, the following additional libraries are required:

acl.tcz
attr.tcz
syslinux.tcz
nspr.tcz
nss.tcz
popt.tcz
tzdata.tcz
sqlite3.tcz

Note:

You can download the libraries listed in the table from the following website:

http://distro.ibiblio.org/tinycorelinux/

In the Downloads section.

The BigFix Virtual Relay uses a RAM disk for the core operating system files. The Linux Kernel core.gz loads the virtual machine at boot time, which gets extracted directly into the RAM disk. The core.gz is distributed as part of the Tiny Core Linux product and contains the root file system and system support applications.

The BigFix client and relay are supplied as Tiny Core extensions.

You can deploy the BigFix Virtual Relay by:

Creating a virtual machine and installing Tiny Core Linux on it, as described in Phase 1 - Configuring the Tiny Core Linux virtual machine.
Creating a virtual machine template that is needed to deploy the BigFix Virtual Relay, as described in Phase 2 - Preparing the BigFix Virtual Relay template.
Using the template, deploying the BigFix Virtual Relay instance, as described in Phase 3 - Configuring the BigFix Virtual Relay instance.

The deployment can be separated into phases.