Hardware requirements for the client

Review important information about hardware requirements for the BigFix client and the software and capacity scans that are embedded in it.

Processor and RAM

An BigFix client alone can consume up to 2% of the processing power of one processor core on an endpoint. However, the client is complemented with software and capacity scans that collect necessary software and hardware information from your endpoints. Although the capacity scan reports very low CPU usage, the software scan can consume substantial CPU resources while a scan is in progress. To decrease the impact of a software scan on production system, it can be scheduled to run on the weekends or in the evenings. You can also run the software scan with the CPU threshold option that limits the consumption of your CPU resources.

Table 1. CPU and RAM usage for BigFix clients
This table consists of four columns, one header row, and three body rows.
Component	CPU	RAM	Comments
BigFix client	< 2 %	< 20 MB	For more information, see: https://support.hcl-software.com/csm?id=bigfix_support.
Software scan	Up to 100 % You can limit the usage by running the scan with the CPU threshold attribute.	< 80 MB	The software scan runs on demand, and can be monitored by checking the following processes: `wscansw`, `wscanfs`.
Capacity scan	< 1 %	< 20 MB	The capacity scan runs every 30 minutes, and can be monitored by checking the following process: `wscanhw`.

Disk space

Ensure that endpoints have enough disk space before you start installing the BigFix clients.

Important: The following disk space requirements do not include the size of files that are downloaded to the endpoint by some of the fixlets. For example, the fixlet Download BigFix Inventory, downloads the application installer to the specified endpoint. Thus, more space is required on the targeted endpoint.

To check whether a fixlet downloads any files to the targeted endpoint, log in to the BigFix console, and check the value in the Download Size column for the particular fixlet. Then, ensure that enough disk space is available on the endpoint.

Table 2. Disk space requirements for clients installed on UNIX
This table consists of four columns, one header row, and one body row. The body row is divided in to six rows from the second column.
Operating system	Directory	Space required	Comments
UNIX	/opt/BESClient	80 MB	Client installation directory.
	/var/opt/BESClient	250 MB	Client data directory. This directory contains all scan results.
	/var/opt/BESClient	200 MB	The additional space is required if the VM Manager Tool is installed on the endpoint.
	/opt/tivoli/cit	50 MB	Scanner installation directory.
	/opt/tivoli/cit/cache_data	100 MB on average	Scanner cache files. The required disk space depends on the number of files, directories, and subdirectories to be scanned. It can be estimated by multiplying the number of files to be scanned by 60 bytes.
	/etc/cit	< 1 MB	Scanner configuration files.
	/tmp	100 MB on average	Scanner temporary files. The required disk space depends on the scanner options that are used (for example, sorting) as well as the number of files, directories, and subdirectories to be scanned. It can be estimated by multiplying the number of files to be scanned by 100 bytes.
	/usr/ibm/tivoli/common/CIT	10 MB	Scanner log files.

Table 3. Disk space requirements for clients installed on Windows
This table consists of four columns, one header row, and one body row. The body row is divided in to five rows from the second column.
Operating system	Directory	Space required	Comments
Windows	C:\Program Files (x86)\BigFix Enterprise\BES Client	150 MB	Client installation and data directory. This directory contains all scan results.
	C:\Program Files (x86)\BigFix Enterprise\BES Client	300 MB	The additional space is required if the VM Manager Tool is installed on the endpoint.
	C:\Program Files\tivoli\cit	20 MB	Scanner installation directory.
	C:\Program Files\tivoli\cit\cache_data	50 MB on average	Scanner cache files. The required disk space depends on the number of files, directories, and subdirectories to be scanned. It can be estimated by multiplying the number of files to be scanned by 60 bytes.
	%WINDIR%	< 1 MB	Scanner configuration files.
	%TMP% or %TEMP%	100 MB on average	Scanner temporary files. The required disk space depends on the scanner options that are used (for example, sorting) as well as the number of files, directories, and subdirectories to be scanned. It can be estimated by multiplying the number of files to be scanned by 100 bytes.
	C:\Program Files\tivoli\ibm\tivoli\common\CIT\logs	10 MB	Scanner log files.