Agent log file questions

(imported topic written by BenKus)

Sometimes you will see errors in the log files. These are usually normal, but you can tell why the error occurred by looking at the error message.

Here are some error codes for “winsock” errors:

http://support.bigfix.com/cgi-bin/kbdirect.pl?id=273

Error code -6 usually means that the DNS name of the server/relay can’t be resolved (often times because there is no DNS server because the agent isn’t connected to a network).

Error code -8 usually means that the agent can’t establish a connection to the server/relay. This might be caused by not having a network path to the server/relay, the server/relay is off or unavailable, the rootserver/relay service is off, or the server/relay is too busy to respond.

Error codes -9 or -10 usually indicate that there is heavy load on the server/relay and they don’t respond in time (which triggers the timeout).

If you see the errors occasionally in the logs, it often is nothing to worry about and the agents will retry automatically and often will succeed a minute or two later. If you see constant errors (and the agent has a network connection), then it can indicate that the server/relay is having an issue.

Ben

(imported comment written by SystemAdmin)

I had a PC getting the -8 error for the last week - even after reboots. The only way I was able to resolve it was to update the NIC drivers.

Sometime the PC was able to resolve http via DNS, other times it failed. Sometimes it would only work using the IP of the BES server, other times everything failed. In all circumstances it was http that was failing.

So sometimes a -8 is also a problem with the NIC or IP of the client PC as well.

-Paul