Features added in previous releases

A summary of changed or features and enhancements included in BigFix® Server Automation in previous releases.

Server Automation 9.5.68 site version 92

This table lists the changed or new features and enhancements included in BigFix® Server Automation 9.5.68
Updates Description
Defect Article addressed
  • KB0107526 : SA Rest : SARESTService Down : Site prefetch
  • KB0107645 : SA Doc : Automation Plan Step after BigFix Client Reset
  • KB0108026 : SA Rest service down : Watchdog to check service status
  • KB0108327 : Failed SA Plan exceeds maxLength facet value '255'
  • KB0107429 : SA : Email notification fails to send email
  • KB0108867 : Server Automation execution giving errors

Server Automation 9.5.66 site version 90

This table lists the changed or new features and enhancements included in BigFix® Server Automation 9.5.66
Updates Description
Enhanced Multi-threaded Plan Engine The Multi-threaded Plan Engine has been enhanced in the this release, leading to an approximately 50% increase in the overall throughput.
Note:
  • By default (-Dmulti.threaded.flow=0), the number of threads are decided based on the number of available core processors.
  • If the number of available core processors (N) is less than 8, the plan engine runs in single thread mode.
  • For detailed information about the multi.threaded.flow field level value, refer to planengine.bat file in the installation folder, where the user can configure this value.
  • If you want to run the Plan Engine in single thread mode, you can change the default setting to -Dmulti.threaded.flow=1.
  • You can also configure the number of active threads. The recommended value is less than or equal to N/2, where N is the number of available core processors (-Dmulti.threaded.flow>1).
Modification to support BigFix Platform v11
  • The OpenSSL is upgraded to Version 3.1.1
  • TLS 1.3 security support
  • SHA 384 security support

Server Automation 9.5.65 site version 87

This table lists the changed or new features and enhancements included in BigFix® Server Automation 9.5.65
Updates Description
Server Automation Plan Engine With this release, multi-threaded Plan Engine performance is optimized.
Server Automation REST API The Node.js library is upgraded to Version 18.
Defect Article addressed
  • KB0094898: SA Rest Node : SSL Certificate Configuration
  • KB0100953: Incorrect SA REST documentation
  • KB0100416: Steps having Baselines with pending restart, doesn't have the step status updated until the entire plan stops.
  • KB0100903: Server Automation plan fails when automation plans is scheduled via REST API
  • KB0101206: Plan engine multi-threading issue while parsing plan stop time
  • KB0103430: Global Notifications not being sent from plans
  • KB0103538: Failure steps of an automation plan do not run on FAILED ONLY endpoints, forcing the plans to stop prematurely
  • KB0102112: Delays in starting Automation Plans

Server Automation 9.5.64 site version 86

This table lists the changed or new features and enhancements included in BigFix® Server Automation 9.5.64
Updates Description
Multi-threaded Plan Engine With this release, Server Automation provides an increased throughput and better resiliency through multi-threaded Plan Engine that can process multiple plans in parallel.
Defect Article addressed
  • KB0099913: Timeout condition not honored for plans with pending restart option set as Continue to next step.
  • KB0099934 : Automation Plan is interrupted when one of its target has no computer name.
  • KB0100011 : Failure on Powershell-type step in Automation Plan

Server Automation 9.5.63 site version 85

This table lists the changed or new features and enhancements included in BigFix® Server Automation 9.5.63
Updates Description
Introducing Status Collector service implemented as a Windows scheduled task Status Collector is introduced to facilitate enhanced monitoring and process improvement to manage Windows 2012 and later clusters with Always On Availability Groups (AAGs). For more detailed information about the procedure to install, run, and manage AAGs, see Managing Always On Availability Groups.
Defect Article addressed
  • KB0098080: Plan Parsing issue - Automation Plan do not start at scheduled time.
  • KB0098101: While executing the automation plan action, the VM is getting created and native client is restarted, but that VM ESXi client reporting with two entries in BigFix Console.

Server Automation 9.5.62 site version 84

This table lists the changed or new features and enhancements included in BigFix® Server Automation 9.5.62
Updates Description
IBM Semeru Open Runtime Replaced the IBM JRE with the IBM Semeru Open Runtime.
Defect Article addressed
  • KB0097779: Automation Plan Dashboard - Improving relevancies to avoid error “Singular expression refers to nonexistent object” when any attribute

Server Automation 9.5.61 site version 83

This table lists the changed or new features and enhancements included in BigFix® Server Automation 9.5.61
Updates Description
Introducing SA Remote Connector tool to replace RXA Remote Connector module provides the same level of functionality as the existing RXA module. The existing RXA module is getting deprecated in subsequent releases. Remote Connector for the SA module uses SSH protocol by leveraging JSCH jar which is open source and is much more secure. For more information, see Server Automation Remote Connector. For installation steps, see Installing Remote Connector.
Note: BigFix does not support new installation or further maintenance of RXA. New users have to use Remote Connector and existing customers can use both in the same environment if needed.
Defect Article addressed
  • KB0094336: Server Automation Plan engine custom log amendments
  • KB0094182: Patching Windows VM Template Automation Plan issues

Server Automation 9.5.60 site version 82

This table lists the changed or new features and enhancements included in BigFix® Server Automation 9.5.60
Updates Description
Defect Article addressed

  • KB0091870 : RHEL : Unable to start Plan Engine : Failed to initialize IBMJCEPlus provider

    KB0093719 : Deploy Management Extender for PowerVM fails because it cannot download the file and AIX Plugin Download Issue

    KB0088923 : Unable to run REST API with 157 Task - SA Rest Node

    KB0094085 : Script Error occurs when taking action on automation plans at custom site

Server Automation 9.5.59 site version 81

This table lists the changed or new features and enhancements included in BigFix® Server Automation 9.5.59
Updates Description
Defect Article addressed
  • KB0091870: RHEL : Unable to start Plan Engine : Failed to initialize IBMJCEPlus provider
  • KB0093719 : Deploy Management Extender for PowerVM fails because it cannot download the file and AIX Plugin Download Issue
  • KB0088923 : Unable to run REST API with 157 Task - SA Rest Node
  • KB0094085 : Script Error occurs when taking action on automation plans at custom site

Server Automation 9.5.58

This table lists the changed or new features and enhancements included in BigFix® Server Automation 9.5.58
Updates Description
Defect Article addressed
  • KB0090918: BigFix Automation plan search for computer group very slow
  • KB0087302: Server Automation Plan Engine performance issues after upgrading to 9.5.56
  • KB0091477: Automation Plan Action Status Dashboard - special characters are not working
  • KB0081819: BigFix Server Automation Plan is not updating the Last Modified User
  • Security vulnerability issues addressed
Make server build faster via baseline parameter support
  • Multi-step server build plan has been improved to include baseline that shows the components in a parent-child structure to facilitate entering parameter values for each component.
Last modified user of a plan is captured in plan detail
  • From 10.0.4 onwards, in the Details tab of a plan, the last modified user of a plan is captured in the Last Modfied By field. In previous versions, by default, the last modified user was always admin, even if some other operator has modified the plan.

Server Automation 9.5.57

This table lists the changed or new features and enhancements included in BigFix® Server Automation 9.5.xx
Updates Description
Defect Article addressed
  • KB0089756: Unable to schedule a plan when using TZ UTC+5:30
Updates
  • Refreshed the embedded version of OpenSSL 1.0.2y.
  • SA Rest Node 14.16.0 upgrades
  • JDK version upgraded to 8.0.6.26 (Security vulnerability issues addressed)

Server Automation 9.5.56

This table lists the changed or new features and enhancements included in BigFix® Server Automation 9.5.56
Updates Description
Defects fixed
  • KB0079739: Fixlets : 137 - Baseline SiteURL not found.
  • Security vulnerability issues addressed
Replaced IBM GSKit with OpenSSL
  • IBM GSKit cryptographic libraries replaced with the OpenSSL 1.0.2u FIPS compliant.

Server Automation 9.5.55

This table lists the changed or new features and enhancements included in BigFix® Server Automation 9.5.55
Updates Description
Defect Article addressed
  • KB0076964: Automation plans are failing after upgrading to Automation Plan Engine 9.5.54
  • KB0077283: Task "Install IEM RXA Tool" in the Server Automation site fails

Server Automation 9.5.54

This table lists the changed or new features and enhancements included in BigFix® Server Automation 9.5.54
Updates Description
Configure Sender Email Address at plan level to send notifications Enhanced Task 153 Configure Email Notification Settings for Server Automation to allow the user to configure Sender Email Address in place of the default configuration at Plan level to send email notifications.
Configure Sender Email Address at plan level to send notifications Enhanced Task 153 Configure Email Notification Settings for Server Automation to allow the user to configure Sender Email Address in place of the default configuration at Plan level to send email notifications.
Check for already running plan engine Enhanced BigFix Server Automation Plan Engine to check for already running plan actions.

Install Latest Automation Plan Engine task

Enhanced Install Latest Automation Plan Engine task to show the status as 'Completed' when the Plan Engine is running and to show 'Failed' if the Plan Engine is not running.
Server Automation REST API Introducing Node-based Server Automation REST API to execute and monitor Server Automation Plans. You can install/uninstall this service using the following tasks:
(ID: 157) Deploy Server Automation REST API
(ID: 158) Remove Server Automation REST API

Fore more information, refer to Server Automation REST API.

API (ID: 158) Remove Server Automation REST API
Table 1. Features added in previous releasesA summary of changed or new features and enhancements included in BigFix® Server Automation .

This table lists the features added to Server Automation for the previous release.

Feature Description
Exclude non-reporting endpoints You can configure the system to exclude non-reporting endpoints from the plan targets list. Computers are considered non-reporting if they have not reported to the BigFix server as seen in the Computers view in the All Content domain. To configure Server Automation to exclude non-reporting endpoints, you specify a non-reporting threshold at a global level when you configure the Automation Plan Engine. For each automation plan, you can configure whether endpoints that have exceeded the non-reporting threshold are excluded from the target list for each plan step. For more information about how this feature works, see Excluding non-reporting endpoints.
Automation Plan Engine configuration You can now configure the Automation Plan Engine more easily using a Task. For more information, see Configuring the Automation Plan Engine.
Patch VMware templates You can patch VMware templates on Windows and Linux. To patch the templates you use a sample automation plan. For more information, see Patching VMware virtual machine templates. Read the documentation carefully before using the plan as the targeting requirements for this sample plan are different to other sample plans.
Specify plan stop time You can set a plan stop time to control when your Automation Plans stop. This enables you to set a time window during which your Automation Plans run. For more information about the expected behavior, see Running an Automation Plan.
Schedule prefetch downloads From the Take Automation Plan Action screen, you can schedule a time and date on which to prefetch downloads. For more information, see Running an Automation Plan.
User interface improvements The Take Automation Plan Action user interface has been streamlined and improved.
Quality improvements and enhancements Several defects have been fixed and quality enhancements have been included in this release.
New sample Automation Plans Several new sample automation plans have been added. Also, existing sample plans have been updated and improved. For more information about the Server Automation sample plans, see Sample automation plans.