Configuring the Automation Plan Distribution Service

You can configure the Automation Plan Distribution Service to specify the polling interval, log level settings, and settings for how Baseline actions are processed, without stopping the Automation Plan Distribution Service. These are all global settings and therefore apply to all Automation Plans.

Before you begin

Activate Server Automation analysis 150 Configure the Automation Distribution Service Analysis, located in Server Automation > All Server Automation Content > Analyses before running the Task to configure the Automation Plan Distribution Service.

About this task

To configure the Automation Plan Distribution Service, you run a Task from the Server Automation domain, specifying your custom settings. This Task enables you to change the polling interval, the logging level, and the settings for how Baselines are processed.

The Automation Plan Distribution Service queries the BigFix server to find open Automation Plan actions to process. When the most recently retrieved set of open Automation Plan actions are processed, the Automation Plan Distribution Service waits for the time that is specified in the polling interval before querying again.

You can change the logging level of the Automation Plan Distribution Service to different logging configurations. By default, Automation Plan Distribution Service logs information messages, warnings, and errors. You can set the Automation Plan Distribution Service logging level to Debug to log more detailed information about the internal operations of the Automation Plan Distribution Service.

You can configure the Automation Plan Distribution Service to control how Baseline actions are processed when failures occur.

Complete the following steps to configure the Automation Plan Distribution Service.

Procedure

  1. From the Server Automation domain, navigate to Setup and Maintenance > Fixlets and Tasks.
  2. Search for and select Task 1078 Configure Latest Automation Plan Distribution Service.
  3. Click Take Action.
  4. From the Take Action screen, enter your custom configuration settings, as follows:
    • In the REST API Configuration section, provide the following Master Operator credentials to authenticate the REST API:
      • Master Operator User Name
      • Master Operator password
      • Confirm Password
      • REST API URL
    • In the Log settings section, for PDS-Console Log Level, select value to configure the logging level for the console logs. The options available are Info and Debug. For Windows, the Automation Plan Distribution Service log file, pds_console.log, is located in the <BES Client Root Directory>\Applications\Logs subdirectory of the installation directory, for example, C:\Program Files (x86)\BigFix Enterprise\BES Client\Applications\Logs. For Linux, the pds_console.log file is located in the /var/opt/BESClient/Applications/Logs directory.
    • In the Watchdog Service Configuration section, enter the polling time interval for the Automation Plan Distribution Service in minutes in the Plan Distribution Service's schedule interval field. By default, its value is 1 minute and its time range is between 1 to 59 minutes.
  5. Target the BigFix server and click OK to run the Task.

Results

Once you restart the Automation Plan Distribution Service, the changed configuration settings will start reflecting.