Configuring the Automation Plan Engine (Multinode)

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

Before you begin

Activate Server Automation analysis 150 Configure the Automation Plan Engine Analysis, located in Server Automation > All Server Automation Content > Analyses before running the Task to configure the Automation Plan Engine (Multinode).

About this task

To configure the Automation Plan Engine (Multinode), 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 Engine (Multinode) 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 Engine (Multinode) waits for the time that is specified in the polling interval before querying again.

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

You can configure the Automation Plan Engine (Multinode) to control how Baseline actions are processed when failures occur.

Complete the following steps to configure the Automation Plan Engine (Multinode).

Procedure

  1. From the Server Automation domain, navigate to Setup and Maintenance > Fixlets and Tasks.
  2. Search for and select Task 1074 Configure the Automation Plan Engine (Multinode).
  3. Click Take Action.
  4. From the Take Action screen, enter your custom configuration settings, as follows:
    • In the Global Settings section, enter a value to specify the Polling interval for the Automation Plan Engine (Multinode). Enter a value in seconds. The default value is three seconds.
    • 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 PE-Console log level and Plan-specific log level, select values to configure the logging level for the console and for plan-specific logs. The options available are Info and Debug. For Windows, the Automation Plan Engine (Multinode) log file, pe_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 pe_console.log file is located in the /var/opt/BESClient/Applications/Logs directory.
    • In the Baseline settings section, select an option to control what actions are run for Baselines, as follows:
      Table 1. Baseline settings
      Setting Value
      Ignore failures and run all actions (standard steps) Select Yes or No, depending on whether you want to run all actions for Baselines for standard steps, regardless of any failures.
      Ignore failures and run all actions (failure steps) Select Yes or No, depending on whether you want to run all actions for Baselines for failure steps, regardless of any failures.
    • In the Non-Reporting Time Threshold section, enter a value in the Non-reporting threshold field to control the check that the Automation Plan Engine (Multinode) performs on each targeted endpoint before deciding if it is considered unresponsive or non-reporting. For each Automation Plan, you can configure a setting to indicate that all non-reporting endpoints should be excluded from the target list of each step. The Automation Plan Engine (Multinode) checks on a per-step basis just before the step is executed, and the most recent "last report time" value is used in the determination. The Automation Plan Engine (Multinode) also uses the step failure behavior settings to determine whether endpoints that were excluded as non-reporting are also automatically excluded from future steps. For more information, see Excluding non-reporting endpoints. Enter a value in the format HH:MM, where HH are hours and MM are minutes. For example, if you want to specify a non-reporting threshold of one hour, enter a value of 1:00. If you do not enter a value for the Non-reporting threshold, the default value is used, which is 9999 hours and 59 minutes.
    • In the Watchdog Service Configuration section, enter the polling time interval for the Automation Plan Engine (Multinode) in minutes in the Plan Engine'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 Engine (Multinode), the changed configuration settings will start reflecting.