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Installation Guide
Learn the system requirements, licensing and installation instructions, and how to configure and maintain BigFix.
Installing the clients
Install the BigFix client on every computer in your network that you want to administer, including the computer that is running the console.
Installing the Client on Windows
You can install the BigFix client manually by running the Client installer on each computer.
Installing the Client using the .msi setup
BES Client MSI Editing Tool
Use the BESClientSetupMSI.exe tool to update the BigFix Client Microsoft Installer (MSI) with a masthead file that might have been updated outside of the normal upgrade cycle.

Installation Guide
Learn the system requirements, licensing and installation instructions, and how to configure and maintain BigFix.
- Introduction
  BigFix aims to solve the increasingly complex problem of keeping your critical systems updated, compatible, and free of security issues. It uses patented Fixlet technology to identify vulnerable computers in your enterprise. With just a few mouse-clicks you can remediate them across your entire network from a central console.
- BigFix Platform Unicode Support Overview
  BigFix Platform V9.5 gathers 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.
- Sample deployment scenarios
  The following deployment scenarios illustrate some basic configurations taken from actual case studies. Your organization might look similar to one of the examples below, depending on the size of your network, the various bandwidth restrictions between clusters and the number of relays and servers. The main constraint is not CPU power, but bandwidth.
- Requirements and assumptions
  BigFix runs efficiently using minimal server, network, and client resources.
- Types of installation
  Before you install the product, decide if you want to do an evaluation or production installation.
- Managing licenses
  You must obtain a license key before you can install and use BigFix.
- Before installing
  Before running the installation make sure that you read the following topics and run the requested activities if needed.
- Installing on Windows systems
  Now that you understand the terms and the administrative roles, you are ready to get authorized and install the programs.
- Installing on Linux systems
  After understanding the terms and the administrative roles, you are ready to actually get authorized and install the programs.
- Installing the clients
  Install the BigFix client on every computer in your network that you want to administer, including the computer that is running the console.
  - Using the Client Deploy Tool
    You can use the Client Deploy Tool (CDT) to install Windows, UNIX and Mac target computers.
  - Installing the Client on AIX
    To install the client perform the following steps.
  - Installing the Client on Linux
    The BigFix client can always be installed by manually running the client installer on each computer.
  - Installing the Client on Mac
    To install the Mac client perform the following steps:
  - Installing the Client on Solaris 10
  - Installing the Client on Solaris 11
    As a prerequisite, all Solaris agents must have the SUNWlibC package installed.
  - ESX Fixlet Content
    To get the Fixlet content for the ESX BigFix agent, subscribe your BigFix server to the appropriate Fixlet site.
  - Installing the Client on Windows
    You can install the BigFix client manually by running the Client installer on each computer.
    - Installing the Client using the .exe setup
    - Installing the Client using the .msi setup
      - BES Client MSI Editing Tool
        Use the BESClientSetupMSI.exe tool to update the BigFix Client Microsoft Installer (MSI) with a masthead file that might have been updated outside of the normal upgrade cycle.
  - Embedding in a Common Build
    If your organization employs a specific build image or common operating environment (COE) on a CD or image that is used to prepare new computers, you can include the Client in this build.
  - Avoiding duplicates when a Client is restored
    When the BigFix client is rolled back or restored from a snapshot, the next time it registers itself with the BigFix server, it receives a new Computer ID. The BigFix client with the old Computer ID becomes inactive because it does not report with the same Computer ID. As a result, the BigFix console shows duplicated entries for the same computer. Additionally, the affected computer loses all information: action history, discovery, and so on.
  - Enabling encryption on Clients
    When installed, you can set up your Clients to encrypt all outgoing reports to protect data such as credit card numbers, passwords, and other sensitive information.
- BigFix Administration Tool
  The BigFix Administration Tool, also called BESAdmin, is the tool we use to perform configuration changes and maintenance operations.
- Post-installation configuration steps
  After having run the installation, make sure that you read the following topics and run the requested activities if needed.
- Managing relays
  Relays can significantly improve the performance of your installation.
- Introduction to Tiny Core Linux - BigFix Virtual Relay
  Follow the step-by-step sequence of operations needed to build the virtual machine, from the downloading of the ISO image to the complete setup and configuration of the BigFix Virtual Relay.
- Setting up a proxy connection
  If your enterprise uses a proxy to access the Internet, your BigFix environment can use that communication path to gather content from sites.
- Running backup and restore
  You can schedule periodic backups (typically nightly) of the BigFix server and database files, to reduce the risk of losing productivity or data when a problem occurs by restoring the latest backup.
- Upgrading on Windows systems
- Upgrading on Linux systems
- Known limitations and workarounds
  This section describes the known limitations and possible workarounds.
- Logging
  This section describes the log files associated with the BigFix components.
- Uninstalling the BigFix client

BES Client MSI Editing Tool

Use the BESClientSetupMSI.exe tool to update the BigFix Client Microsoft Installer (MSI) with a masthead file that might have been updated outside of the normal upgrade cycle.

This tool includes that masthead into the client MSI package (BigFixAgent.msi) enabling the client to know to which server to connect.

You can use the following arguments when running the tool:

<path_to_masthead_file> which is a required command-line argument.
<path_to_MSI> which represents the path to the MSI file to update. This is a required comment-line argument.
“/silent” which is an optional command-line argument that you can specify to prevent pop-up error message windows from being displayed in case of failure.

Note: The tool uses relative and absolute paths. However, the UI does not replace relative paths with absolute paths in the message box that displays if you are not in silent mode.

Note: If you want to use the latest Actionsite.afxm masthead file, you can locate it under C:\Program Files (x86)\BigFix Enterprise\BES Client.

The tool returns:

A non-zero exit code in case of failure.
Zero if the MSI was updated successfully.

Sample calls:

Displays usage information:

BESClientSetupMSI.exe

Updates the BigFixAgent.msi file with a copy of the masthead data contained in masthead.afxm:

BESClientSetupMSI.exe masthead.afxm BigFixAgent.msi

Updates the BigFixAgent.msi file with a copy of the masthead data contained in masthead.afxm without displaying the success or failure messages:

BESClientSetupMSI.exe masthead.afxm BigFixAgent.msi /silent