Unicode

9.2.3 Available from 9.2.3. Starting from V9.5, BigFix Platform has the capability to gather 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. As a result, regardless of the system and encoding that your clients use, the data is correctly displayed both in BigFix and in BigFix Inventory. This capability is useful when your environment has clients with different code pages and data that contains non-ASCII characters.

This capability has the following main assumptions:
  • The data is correctly displayed only if the characters belong to the code page of a particular client. Your clients can use various code pages and all of them are supported by BigFix, but from the perspective of a single client, all outgoing data must be consistent with the code page of this client. For example, if you install software whose name contains the ê character (which is specific to Windows 1252 code page) on a client that uses the Windows 1250 code page, this character will not be correctly displayed in BigFix Inventory, because it does not belong to the code page of the client.
  • Encoding into UTF-8 format is supported only for the bottom-up data flow, that is, for the data that flows from the BigFix clients to the BigFix server. The top-down data flow does not support this encoding, which means that all actions sent towards the clients, for example through Fixlets, cannot contain non-ASCII characters. The top-down data flow always uses the code page of the BigFix server.

Prerequisites

  • BigFix server 9.5 or higher
  • BigFix agent 9.5 or higher
  • BigFix Inventory 9.2.3 or higher

Limitations

  • Results of the package data scan

    All results of the package data scan, that is, packages and data retrieved from the registry, are omitted if they contain characters that do not belong to the code page of the client on which they are installed. Such results are filtered out on the client side and are not uploaded to BigFix. Other types of the software scan are not affected.

  • Names of all items created in the BigFix interface

    All items created in the BigFix interface, such as custom sites, Fixlets and analyses, computer groups, and so on, will not be correctly displayed if they contain characters that do not belong to the code page of the BigFix server. All these items are a part of the top-down data flow, which does not support encoding into UTF-8 format.

  • BigFix Inventory Fixlets that has user-specified paths

    Avoid using non-ASCII characters while specifying paths in BigFix Inventory Fixlets, because such paths might not be accepted. The affected Fixlets are: Add Excluded Directories, Remove Excluded Directories, and Change Scanner Cache Folder.

  • VM managers credentials

    Avoid using non-ASCII characters in user names that are used to log in to VM managers, because the VM Manager Tool that connects to those VM managers does not support encoding into UTF-8 format.

  • Subscription e-mails

    Avoid using non-ASCII characters in email addresses, which are used as the recipients of scheduled reports.