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Installation Guide
Learn the system requirements, licensing and installation instructions, and how to configure and maintain BigFix.
Upgrading on Windows systems
Manual upgrade
Use the manual upgrade instead of the Fixlet upgrade when you upgrade a DSA multiple server environment or a BigFix server which uses a remote database, or a BigFix environment having remote WebUI or remote Web Reports server.
Upgrading the server

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.
- 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
  - BigFix client backward compatibility
    To correctly display reports of clients deployed with different code pages and languages you must have ALL the components (server, relays, clients) at version 9.5.
  - Upgrade paths to V9.5
    The following tables describe the upgrade paths to BigFix V9.5:
  - Before upgrading
    Perform these steps before upgrading the BigFix components:
  - Upgrade prerequisite checks
    The following prerequisite checks are automatically run by the upgrade procedure on the BigFix Server.
  - Automatic upgrade
    You can proceed with an automatic upgrade using the "BigFix - Updated Platform Server Components version x.x.x Now Available!" Fixlet.
  - Manual upgrade
    Use the manual upgrade instead of the Fixlet upgrade when you upgrade a DSA multiple server environment or a BigFix server which uses a remote database, or a BigFix environment having remote WebUI or remote Web Reports server.
    - Upgrading the installation generator
    - Upgrading the server
      - Upgrading a BigFix server with a remote database
        The upgrade Fixlet in the Support site does not upgrade a remote server correctly. Run the full BigFix server installer to perform the upgrade.
    - Upgrading the Console
    - Upgrading the WebUI
    - Upgrading the relays
      To upgrade the BigFix from the BigFix console, apply the Updated Windows Relay Fixlet to all relevant relays.
    - Upgrading the clients
      You can upgrade the BigFix Clients by copying the BigFix Client installation folder to each computer that is running the BigFix Client, and then running setup.exe.
    - Upgrading the Web Reports server
      To upgrade a stand-alone Web Reports server on Windows, copy the BigFix Server installation folder to the Web Reports Server computer. The default location of the BigFix Server installation folder is %PROGRAM FILES%\BigFix Enterprise\BES Installers\Server. Run the BigFix-BES-Server setup.exe, which detects the Web Reports installation and offers to upgrade it for you.
  - Rollback
- 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

Upgrading the server

Copy the BigFix Server installation folder to the BigFix Server computer. The default location of the BigFix Server installation folder is %PROGRAM FILES%\BigFix Enterprise\BES Installers\Server.
Note: If you have a remote database, prior to upgrading see Upgrading a BigFix server with a remote database.
Run the BigFix Server installer (setup.exe) on the BigFix Server computer.
Note: Before starting to upgrade, the upgrade procedure runs a set of prerequisite checks. If any of them fails, you can do the required corrective actions and then rerun the upgrade procedure. For more information, see Upgrade prerequisite checks.
Follow the installer instructions to upgrade.
Run the Administration Tool BESAdmin.exe to distribute the updated license.

Note:

Before upgrading, it is advisable to delete or rename the server_audit.log file to avoid inaccurate interpretation of file encoding.
After upgrading the server to Version 9.5.5 the WebUI must select and get new data due to data movement in the database. This might temporarily prevent the FillDB process from processing the client reports.