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Installation Guide
Learn the system requirements, licensing and installation instructions, and how to configure and maintain BigFix.
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.
Efficient relay setup
To increase efficiency and reduce latency, this company has set up a hierarchy of relays to help relieve the server load.

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.
  - Basic deployment
    A simplified BigFix deployment, that points out the basic hierarchy and the ports used to connect the components, is shown in the following diagram.
  - Main Office with Fast-WAN Satellites
    This configuration is common in many universities, government organizations, and smaller companies with only a few geographical locations.
  - Disaster Server Architecture
    Companies with sensitive or high availability needs might want to deploy multiple, fully-redundant servers to maintain continuous operation even in the event of serious disruptions. BigFix includes the important ability to add multiple, fully redundant servers: a feature called Disaster Server Architecture (DSA).
  - Efficient relay setup
    To increase efficiency and reduce latency, this company has set up a hierarchy of relays to help relieve the server load.
  - Hub and spoke
    This scenario involves a main data center, a small number of large regional offices, and many small regional offices.
  - Remote Citrix / Terminal Services Configuration
    Although BigFix can efficiently deliver content even over slow connections, the console itself is data-intensive and can overwhelm a link slower than 256 kbps. Adding more Clients further increases the lag time.
- 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.
- 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

Efficient relay setup

To increase efficiency and reduce latency, this company has set up a hierarchy of relays to help relieve the server load.

Each relay they add takes an extra burden off the server for both patch downloads and data uploads. Setting up relays is easy, and the clients can be set to automatically find the closest relay, further simplifying administration.

This window displays a diagram showing a single relay in the large regional office.

Note the following about the diagram:

There is a dedicated server computer known as the Top-Level relay that is used to take the load off the server computer.
All relays are manually configured to point to either the top level relay or to another relay that is closer. The general rule for configuring relays is that you want as few levels as possible to the relays unless there is a bandwidth bottleneck. Communications over thin pipes should be relay to relay. The top-level relay relieves the server, and the secondary relay allows a single download to be distributed over hundreds of clients.
There is a relay in the DMZ set up with a special trust relationship with the server. This relay allows clients in the DMZ or on the public Internet to be managed by BigFix. The DMZ places a security firewall between the relay and the set of home computers and laptops reporting in from the Internet.
This diagram shows a single relay in the large regional office. However, for offices with more than a few hundred clients, there will typically be multiple relays to effectively distribute the load.
As a general rule, you should deploy at least one relay per 500-1000 clients to maximize the efficiency of the relay.