Ensuring currency of scanner actions and fixlets

Make sure that the scanner actions that are running on your endpoints are updated after each application release. The fixlet names contain the information about version to help you easily determine which actions are activated with the outdated fixlets and should be restarted after the application update.

Versioning of fixlets

9.2.15 Starting from application update 9.2.15, names of all BigFix Inventory fixlets include their version in brackets, for example; Initiate Software Scan (9.2.15.0).

The fixlet version is updated with each release of the product, regardless of whether the definition of the fixlet changed. However, the versions of the internal tools, such as the scanner, SAP Metric Data Collector and VM Manager tool are updated only when these tools change. Therefore, it might occur that the version of the installation or upgrade fixlet and the version of the tool that it deploys differ.

Best practices

Limit modifications of the fixlet names
Do not modify the entire name of the fixlet, but rather add a meaningful prefix or suffix to it. Keep the version in the fixlet name, so that it is reflected in the name of the initiated action. Thanks to this, you can easily distinguish the actions that are initiated with different version of the fixlet.
Ensure currency of your scanner actions
Your actions are not automatically updated upon installing a new application release. Whenever new version of fixlets are available, restart your current actions. To check what actions to restart, compare the names of the active actions with the names of the relevant fixlets. If the versions that are included in these names are different, restart the actions.
To restart the single scanning action, perform the following steps.
  1. Go to the BigFix console, and select Actions in the navigation tree.
  2. Right-click the chosen action, and select Stop Action.
  3. Go to Sites > External Sites > BigFix Inventory.
  4. Choose Fixlets and Tasks, select the fixlet that you want to restart and click Take Action. Make sure that the fixlet parameters are the same as those set in the previously stopped action.
Note: BigFix Inventory server is compatible with the actions that were initiated with the previous versions of the server. However, only by ensuring the currency of your scanner action and fixlets you take advantage of new features and improvements that are implemented in the new release.
Plan ahead
Plan ahead and be ready to restart your current actions every time a new release of BigFix Inventory is installed. The plan should be aligned with your business needs and should not prevent you from upgrading the server.