Installation and upgrade problems

Solve common problems that are related to installation, configuration, and upgrade of BigFix Inventory.

Scanner installation fails with return code 126 (permission denied)

BFI Install or Upgrade Scanner fixlet fails with return code 126 (permission denied) when /var directory on the endpoint is mounted with the "noexec" option.

The scanner install log file shows the following error:

/var/opt/BESClient/LMT/CIT/citinstall/installcit.sh: line 11: /var/opt/BESClient/LMT/CIT/citinstall/wcitinst: Permission denied

Software scan fails when /var directory on the endpoint is mounted with the "noexec" option.

Refer to the limitation for more information.

Upgrade of the server with a fixlet fails on Windows.
The problem occurs when BigFix Inventory server file or folder is locked by an external application. For more information, see Server installation and uninstallation return codes.
Installation of the server cannot continue and an error is displayed.
Installation of the BigFix Inventory server cannot continue and the following message is displayed:
./tools/getArch: line 108: print: command not found 
./tools/getArch: line 109: print: command not found 
./tools/getArch: line 116: print: command not found 
setup-server-9.0-linux-x86_64.sh: line 52: print: command not found

The error might be caused by the fact the operating system is not fully configured. You might also need to reboot the operating system.

Installation of the BigFix server with a remote SQL Server database fails.
The problem might occur while installing the BigFix server on the Windows 2008 Server operating system. When the installer attempts to connect to the remote SQL Server database, the following message is displayed:
Computer Browser Error with Windows Authentication

To solve the problem, enable the file and printer sharing in Windows:

  1. Go to Control Panel > Network and Sharing Center.
  2. Click Advanced sharing settings.
  3. Select the Turn on file and printer sharing check box.
  4. Click Save changes.
Installation of the BigFix Inventory server does not start on Linux.
The problem occurs when the Symantec process rtvscand is running. To solve the problem, you can stop the rtvscand process or exclude the /tmp folder from Symantec scan. For more information about excluding the /tmp folder, see: How to Configure Scan Exclusions in SEP for Linux.
Installation fails and a warning about the lack of free disk space in a given directory is displayed. However, there is enough free space in that directory.
To solve the problem, perform the following steps.
  1. Open the command line.
  2. Run the following command to change the variable that is responsible for checking disk space requirements.
    • Linux icon export tlm_debug_disable_disk_space_check=true
    • Windows icon set tlm_debug_disable_disk_space_check=true
  3. Run the following command to start the installation.
    • Linux icon ./setup-server-linux-x86_64.sh
    • Windows icon setup-server-windows-x86_64.bat
Installation cannot be started, because the /tmp directory has the NOEXEC flag.
In some environments, the /tmp directory might be mounted with the NOEXEC flag, which blocks the installation. The problem can be recognized by the following error in the ia.log file. 
Launching installer... 

./server/parts/CDROM_Installers/Disk1/InstData/Linux_64/VM/setupServer.b
in: line 3318: /tmp/install.dir.20400/Linux/resource/jre/jre/bin/java: 
Permission denied
The /tmp directory is used to store temporary files during the installation. Since the BigFix Inventory installer is based on InstallAnywhere, you can change the IATEMPDIR environment variable that specifies the temporary directory of InstallAnywhere, and set it to a custom directory.
  1. Create a custom temporary directory, for example:
    mkdir /root/Install_tmp
  2. Set the IATEMPDIR variable to the new directory:
    export IATEMPDIR=/root/Install_tmp
  3. Restart the installation.
Installation of BigFix Inventory with All-in-one installer fails because the file system where the DB2 instance directory resides is mounted as NOSUID or NOEXEC (or both).
Remount the file system where the DB2 instance directory resides, and make sure is not mounted with the NOSUID or NOEXEC flag (or both).
During the configuration of the connection to a remote DB2 database, the following error is displayed: The user specified for the communication with the database could not be found in the system.
The problem occurs when the remote DB2 database is installed on an AIX computer. It means that the user that you want to use for connecting to the database does not exist on the LDAP server. To solve the problem, specify a different user or create a user with the specified credentials on the LDAP server.
During the installation of BigFix Inventory for non-English-language locales, some Java exceptions are displayed in English.
Even for non-English-language locales, some Java exceptions that might occur during the installation are displayed in English. However, the Details view that contains the exceptions also includes more information that can help you to understand and solve the issue. If you want to see the translated description of a problem, you can switch to the Problems view where all the available details are provided.
During the configuration of the connection to the BigFix server, the following message is displayed: Could not determine character set of the BES database. Are you sure the BES server is running an agent?.
The problem occurs when the BigFix client was removed from the computer where the BigFix server is installed. To solve the problem, manually set the _BESClient_DeploymentEncoding_IANAName property to that of your deployment code page.
The list of non-English languages in the installation wizard is reduced.
To see your language as an option in the installation wizard, change your system locale to a chosen language:
  1. On Linux, open the Terminal and run the following command: 
    export LC_ALL=language_code.UTF8
    For example, export LC_ALL=en_US.UTF8.
  2. Run the locale command to verify changes.
  3. Restart the installation and choose the language.
Note: To install BigFix Inventory on Windows in Korean language, you must have administrator role with English language. Some of the symbols are not supported in Korean language and this may lead to crash the installer.
Despite upgrading to the latest version, the service name still shows the old version.
The display name of the service on Windows does not change after the upgrade, which is a limitation. It does not, however, impact BigFix Inventory in any way. To update the service name, restart your computer.
The server cannot be upgraded because the task Upgrade to the latest version of BigFix Inventory is not relevant.
The problem occurs when the previous version of the server was installed manually on a computer without the BigFix client. To make the upgrade task relevant, perform the following steps:
  1. Install the BigFix client on the computer with the BigFix Inventory server.
  2. Set the value of the SUA_Server_Path_[user_ID] parameter to the installation path of the BigFix Inventory.
    1. Log in to the BigFix console that is linked to your BigFix server.
    2. In the navigation bar, click Computers.
    3. In the upper-right pane, right click the computer on which you installed BigFix Inventory, and click Edit Computer Settings.
    4. To add a setting, click Add.
    5. In the Setting Name, type SUA_Server_Path_[user_ID].
      Note: user_ID on Linux is the Linux user ID of the user who installed BigFix Inventory, while on Windows it must be set to 0.
    6. In the Setting Value, specify the BigFix Inventory installation path.
    7. Click OK.
Upgrade of the BigFix Inventory server with a fixlet is not possible on Linux because the fixlet is not relevant due to problems with relevance 6 is not met.

When the Upgrade to the latest version of BigFix Inventory (version) fixlet is not relevant, use the Analyze the Relevance of a Fixlet or Task fixlet to check which part of the relevance expression is not matched. For detailed instructions, see: Relevance.

If the problem is with relevance 6, it is most likely that the /etc/passwd file cannot be accessed or read. To work around this problem, create a custom copy of the Upgrade to the latest version of BigFix Inventory (version) fixlet with relevance 6 removed.
  1. Relevance 6 checks whether there is enough disk space to perform the upgrade. Because you are going to remove these checks from the fixlet, ensure that enough free disk space is available in the relevant directories.After you run the Upgrade to the latest version of BigFix Inventory (version) fixlet, the BigFix server downloads the new installer to its file system (1 GB on the server). Then, it delivers the package to the specified endpoint and extracts it (1 GB on the endpoint). The upgrade also requires 0.5 GB in the system temporary directory and 1 GB on the disk where BigFix Inventory is installed plus the current size of the following directories.
    • install_dir\wlp\usr\servers\server1\data
    • install_dir\wlp\usr\servers\server1\logs
      Where install_dir is the BigFix Inventory installation directory. By default, the BigFix Inventory server is installed in the following directory.
      • /opt/BFI
      • C:\Program Files\BigFix Enterpise\BFI
  2. Create a custom copy of the Upgrade to the latest version of BigFix Inventory (version) fixlet.
    • Log in to the BigFix console.
    • In the navigation tree, go to Sites > External Sites > BigFix Inventory > Fixlets and Tasks.
    • Right-click the fixlet Upgrade to the latest version of IBM BigFix Inventory (version), and click Create Custom Copy.
    • Change the name of the fixlet so that you can easily recognize it.
    • Open the Relevance tab, remove relevance 6, and click OK.
  3. To upgrade the BigFix Inventory server with a custom version of the fixlet, click Take Action. Select the computer on which the BigFix Inventory server is installed, and click OK.

    If you want to upgrade the server later, the custom copy of the fixlet is available in Sites > Master Action Site > Fixlets and Tasks.

  4. After the BigFix Inventory server is upgraded, remove the custom version of the fixlet.
    • In the navigation tree, go to Sites > Master Action Site > Fixlets and Tasks.
    • Right-click the custom version of the fixlet, and click Remove. Then, click OK to confirm.
Upgrade of the server with a fixlet fails on Linux.
The problem occurs when the server was installed by a non-root user. To solve the problem, upgrade the server in interactive or silent mode.
After the upgrade, the Usage per Computer report is empty
To solve the problem, run the import of data.
Manually changing the port number of BigFix Inventory
If you cannot access the user interface (Management > Server Settings) to change the port number, you can also do it in the server.xml file.
  1. Go to install_dir/wlp/usr/servers/server1, and edit the server.xml file.
  2. In httpsPort, enter the new port number.
    <httpEndpoint host="*" httpsPort="9081" id="tema">

    The change takes effect immediately, the server does not need to be restarted.

Uninstalling BigFix Inventory fails because the BigFix Inventory service is unresponsive and cannot be stopped.
You can manually force an unresponsive service to stop.
  1. Open the command line.
  2. Run the following command:
    • Linux icon service BFIserver status
    • Windows icon sc queryex BFIServer
  3. Identify the PID of the BigFix Inventory process.
  4. In the same command line, run the following command:
    • Linux icon kill -9 identified_PID
    • Windows icon taskkill /pid identified_PID /f