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Installation Guide
Learn the system requirements, licensing and installation instructions, and how to configure and maintain BigFix.
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.
Troubleshooting proxy connection
Common problems you might find with a proxy connection.
Error Unexpected HTTP response: 503 Service Unavailable in GatherDB.log
Error for service unavailability.

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.
- 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.
  - Enabling client polling
    If an HTTP proxy exists between a parent relay and a client or child relay, or between the server and a child node, apply this workaround to bypass a limitation, that is caused by the proxy and that affects downstream communications.
  - Connecting the console to the server through a proxy
    If the BigFix console is installed on the same system as the BigFix server and if a proxy configuration is set in Internet Explorer, then ensure that, in that configuration, the Bypass proxy server for local addresses and the Exceptions settings are correctly specified.
  - Setting a proxy connection on the server
    When you install BigFix V9.5, you are asked if you want to set up communication with a proxy.
  - Setting up a proxy connection on a relay
    Complete the following steps to allow the relay to communicate with its parent components:
  - Setting up a proxy connection on a client
    To set the proxy connection on the client, complete the following steps:
  - Best practices to consider when defining a proxy connection
  - Troubleshooting proxy connection
    Common problems you might find with a proxy connection.
    - Error Unable to get site content (failed to pass sha1 hash value checks in BESRelay.log
      Error in getting site content.
    - Error Unexpected HTTP response: 503 Service Unavailable in GatherDB.log
      Error for service unavailability.
    - How to check if the proxy configuration is correct
      Checks for proxy configuration.
    - New site version cannot be gathered
      Errors in gathering site version.
- 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

Error `Unexpected HTTP response: 503 Service Unavailable` in GatherDB.log

Error for service unavailability.

The BigFix server communication with the Gather database is performed through the IP address 127.0.0.1 and the database does not need a proxy configuration. In the event the error message Unexpected HTTP response: 503 Service Unavailable is repeatedly listed in the GatherDB.log file, you must check that the environment variable HTTP_PROXY has not been set if it is not used in your environment, or you must set the environment variable NO_PROXY to the value 127.0.0.1. After completing these changes, restart the BESGatherDB service.

The log file GatherDB.log is located in:

Windows operating systems

32bit systems: C:\Program Files\BigFix Enterprise\BES Server\GatherDBData
64bit systems: C:\Program Files (x86)\BigFix Enterprise\BES Server\GatherDBData

Linux operating systems

/var/opt/BESServer/GatherDBData

Error Unexpected HTTP response: 503 Service Unavailable in GatherDB.log

Error `Unexpected HTTP response: 503 Service Unavailable` in GatherDB.log