BigFix Settings Optimizations

BigFix is Extremely Flexible

• There are tons of setting that can be tweaked for almost every part of the BigFix platform.
  • Root Server: _BESRelay_ & _BESGather_
  • Relays: _BESRelay_ & _BESGather_
  • Clients: _BESClient_
  • and more!
• No matter what your use case is, there is a setting that can help!

Many Defaults Should Be Changed!

• There are many default BigFix Settings that are sub-optimal for almost all use cases!
  • This will cover the ones with the biggest impact, that are also safest to deploy.
• BigFix is very conservative about Defaults, and especially changing them once they have been established.

_BESClient_Resource_PowerSaveEnable

Default: Disabled (0)

Recommendation: Enabled (1)

• This setting should be enabled on:
  • Laptops
  • VMs
  • Docker Containers
  • & probably everything else
• This setting tells the client to stop evaluating relevance if things are not changing.
  • The client will wake if notified of new content.

_BESClient_Resource_AccelerateForPendingMessage

Default: Disabled (0)

Recommendation: Enabled (1)

• This setting should be enabled everywhere
• Allows BigFix to wakeup due to new actions (UDP)

_BESClient_Log_Days

Default: 10 days (10)

Recommendation: 31 days (31)

• This setting controls how many log files the client will keep before deleting the oldest.
• The default of 10 days is often too short to catch issues before logs are rotated.

_BESClient_ActionManager_HistoryKeepDays

Default: 1 year (365)

Recommendation: 5 years (1825)

• This setting controls how long the client keeps track of action history
• Keep it for the entire device lifecycle!
• Stored efficiently in a SQLite database
• Can be queried with Relevance!

sum of (it as string as integer) of rows of statements "SELECT TotalActiveCount FROM ACTION_USER_RESPONSE_HISTORY" of sqlite databases of files "ActionHistory.db" of folders "__Global" of data folders of client

_BESRelay_HealthCheck_EnableAtStartup

Default: Disabled (0)

Recommendation: Enabled (1)

• Applies to Relays
• HealthCheck process validates site data integrity, and re-requests any site data that is corrupt so it can be properly served to clients.
• Can Fix FAILED to Synchronize errors in client logs

_BESRelay_RelaysFileUpdater_RefreshSeconds

Default: 1 minute (60)

Recommendation: 1 hour (3600) or more

Applicability: root server only (exists main gather service)

• This setting controls how often the Relays.dat file is propagated when new Relays are created.
• This setting matters most if new Relays are created frequently, but the default setting is extremely aggressive.

_BESClient_Comm_CommandPollEnable

Default: Disabled (0)

Recommendation: Enabled (1)

• It should be enabled on 100% of endpoints, it is just a matter of how frequent the command polling should be done.
• The frequency of command polling is controlled by the setting:
  • _BESClient_Comm_CommandPollIntervalSeconds

_BESClient_Comm_CommandPollIntervalSeconds

Default: 12 hours (43200)

Recommendation: 3 hours (10800)

• This setting controls how often a client polls for commands, if enabled by:
  • _BESClient_Comm_CommandPollEnable
• All systems should have it set to at least once every 6 hours.
• Those not getting UDP should have a more aggressive value.
  • Generally not more often than once every 30 minutes

_BESClient_Download_UtilitiesCacheLimitMB

Default: 10MB (10)

Recommendation: 200MB (200) or more

• This setting controls the maximum size of the storage for utilities in a cache that does not get cleared out in the same way as the Client’s Download Cache.
• This cache is designed for small files that are used across many different actions where you would not want them to have to be redownloaded every time.
• BigFix actions that have downloads that are already cached will work without network connectivity!

I’m Convinced, Now What?

4 Actions Designed to Target ALL COMPUTERS:

• Run Once: Set initial client settings if unset
• Run Always: Force command polling to be enabled
• Run Always: Set command polling to at least once every 6 hours
• Run Once: Set _BESClient_Resource_PowerSaveEnable after 2 days in BigFix

What about new BigFix clients?

prepopulate settings with clientsettings.cfg

• Can be used with Windows & Mac installers (EXE & PKG)
• Can be used with Linux installers using a script
• Will improve BigFix performance from the start!

Example clientsettings.cfg :

_BESClient_Resource_StartupNormalSpeed=1
_BESClient_Download_RetryMinutes=1
_BESClient_Log_Days=31

What about other settings?

Questions?

forum.bigfix.com

bigfix.slack.com

References:

• https://github.com/jgstew/jgstew.github.io/tree/master/_bfsettings
• https://github.com/jgstew/bigfix-content/issues/2
• https://github.com/jgstew/bigfix-content/blob/master/dashboards/ClientSettingsManager.ojo
• Example clientsettings.cfg https://gist.github.com/jgstew/51a99ab4b5997efa0318
• https://github.com/jgstew/jgstew.github.io/blob/master/_posts/2019-11-15-BigFix-Settings-For-All-Computers.md