Welcome
Installation Guide
Learn the system requirements, licensing and installation instructions, and how to configure and maintain BigFix.
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.
On Linux systems
If you back up the database and the BigFix Server files, when needed you can restore the BigFix environment on a Linux computer.
Server Backup
How to back up the BigFix Server.

BigFix Documentation Homepage
BigFix 10 Platform Documentation
Welcome to the BigFix Platform documentation, where you can find information about how to install, maintain, and use BigFix.
Detailed system requirements
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Platform guides in PDF format
Following is a list of links to the BigFix Platform user guides in PDF format:
Common Criteria Certification
BigFix 10.0.1.41 complies with the requirements of the standard ISO/IEC 15408 (Common Criteria) v. 3.1 for the assurance level: EAL2
Getting Started
Use this section to become familiar with BigFix infrastructure and key concepts necessary to understand how it works.
HTTPS across BigFix applications
This topic describes how the SSL/HTTPS communication works in BigFix applications and links the tasks on how to configure it.
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 V10 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.
- 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.
  - On Windows systems
    If you back up the database and the BigFix Server files, when needed you can restore the BigFix environment on a Windows computer.
  - On Linux systems
    If you back up the database and the BigFix Server files, when needed you can restore the BigFix environment on a Linux computer.
    - Server Backup
      How to back up the BigFix Server.
    - Server Recovery
      How to perform a server recovery.
    - Verifying restore results
      Ensure that your BigFix Server has been restored.
    - Enabling the DB2 database online backup
      Starting from BigFix Version 9.5 Patch 3, you can customize your Linux environment to run the online backup of the BFENT and BESREPOR DB2 databases.
    - Automatic DB2 databases backup upon upgrade
      You can configure your BigFix Server to automatically run the backup of the BFENT and BESREPOR databases before and after running the upgrade process.
    - DSA Recovery
      When recovering a lost DSA server, all top-level BigFix relays (and therefore the entire deployment) should already be pointing to the remaining DSA server.
- Upgrading
  The steps to upgrade the BigFix Platform.
- SQL Server parallelism optimization
  The performance of an SQL Server database instance can often be improved by small tweaks. Performance might also be hindered by simple oversights. In fact, some SQL Server parallelism settings have suboptimal default values. Moreover, they have to be re-tuned after an hardware upgrade. Other issues might arise from inadvertent hardware configurations, especially when SQL Server is hosted on a virtual machine (VM).
- 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
  To uninstall the BigFix client installed on the various operating systems, see the following sections.
Configuration Guide
Learn how to configure BigFix according to your needs.
Console Operator's Guide
Learn how to work with the BigFix Console.
Asset Discovery User's Guide
Learn how BigFix Asset Discovery works.
Web Reports Guide
Learn how the Web Reports feature extends the power of BigFix.
WebUI User's Guide
Read this guide for an introduction to the WebUI tools, concepts, and terminology.
WebUI Administration Guide
Read this guide for information about installing and administering the WebUI.
Glossary
This glossary provides terms and definitions for the Modern Client Management for BigFix software and products.

Server Backup

How to back up the BigFix Server.

Perform the following steps:

Stop all the BigFix processes, including running plug-ins if any, using the following commands:

/etc/init.d/beswebui stop
/etc/init.d/besclient stop
/etc/init.d/beswebreports stop
/etc/init.d/besgatherdb stop
/etc/init.d/besfilldb stop
/etc/init.d/besserver stop

Back up the BFENT and BESREPOR databases using the following commands:
```
su - db2inst1
db2 backup db BFENT
db2 backup db BESREPOR
```
Optionally add an absolute path with the commands:
```
su - db2inst1
db2 backup db BFENT to /Absolute/Path/Of/ExistingFolder
db2 backup db BESREPOR to /Absolute/Path/Of/ExistingFolder
```
These databases might have different names if, at installation time, one of these commands has been used: -opt BES_DB_NAME=<SERVER_DB_NAME> or -opt WR_DB_NAME=<WEBREPORTS_DB_NAME>.

Manually back up the following folders:

/var/opt/BESClient
/var/opt/BESCommon
/var/opt/BESServer
/var/opt/BESWebReportsServer
/var/opt/BESWebUI

Back up site credentials, license certificates and masthead files.
The license.pvk and license.crt files are critical to the security and operation of BigFix. If the private key (pvk) files are lost, they cannot be recovered.
The masthead file is an important file that must be used for recovery. It contains the information about the BigFix server configuration. To back it up, either copy the /etc/opt/BESServer/actionsite.afxm file renaming it masthead.afxm, or open the masthead file from a browser, http://hostname:52311/masthead/masthead.afxm, and then save it locally.
Use the DB client to connect to the BFENT database and examine the DBINFO and REPLICATION_SERVERS tables:
Record all column values for verification purposes.
If DNS aliases are being leveraged for the servers, this should not change. If is using hostnames, and the hostnames are changing, these column values may need manual modification after the restore; if you want to update the CN on the BigFix internal certificates, see How to change the Common Name (CN) on BigFix internal certificates.