BesAdmin Tool 9.5 Automation

Usage and Config
1

I Recently upgraded to 9.5.3 from 9.2.4 and found that the the BesComputerRemover tool no longer is supported. Previously i used a sheduled task to automate the removal of systems via powershell and the BesComputerRemover tool. Now, the functionality of the new method falls a bit short of automating the removal of dead or decommissioned servers. Is there a way to use powershell to initiate the admin tool without the GUI requesting the password for the Master Deployment Account? I have not found anything in the additional administion commands

https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/en/SS6MCG_9.5.0/com.ibm.bigfix.doc/Platform/Installation/c_additional_besadmin_onwindows.html

What i am hoping to do is create a scheduled task that does the following set of actions.

  • Copy and Rename an archived report from .\LastRunReports that has a list of servers that have not reported in X Days:

      > Copy-Item "D:\Program Files (x86)\BigFix Enterprise\BES Server\BESReportsData\ArchiveData\LastRunReports\1.dat" "C:\AWS_Related\awscomputers.txt" -force

  • Initiate the BESAdmin tool with the following command line:

    > "D:\Program Files (x86)\BigFix Enterprise\BES Server\BESAdmin.exe" /run /removecomputersfile="C:\BigFix_Working_Dir\awscomputers.txt"

Any Assistance with this would be greatly appreciated.

2

Unless I am missing something, why could you not just set your settings from the ADMIN tool “clean Up” tab?
It seems that you were running a Web Report to find the Endpoints that have not “checked in” for X number of days, then initiate the Power Shell to remove them, which could be done via the Clean up tab"

2 Likes
3

Although this would accomplish removing stale machines globally, i want to have the flexibility to delete machines based on certain conditions, such as cloud based machines that have not reported in 5 days. Perhaps submitting a RFE to add remove computers buy file. I suppose that in the interim, i could use Rest API calls to delete the systems I want. Thanks for your response.

4

Actually, it is possible to delete computers by file currently via BESAdmin’s command-line options. Please see the ‘/removecomputers’ and ‘removecomputersfile’ options described here:

https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSQL82_9.5.0/com.ibm.bigfix.doc/Platform/Installation/c_additional_besadmin_onwindows.html#c_additional_besadmin_onwindows

5

Indeed, however when I initiate with the the above command in first post, the BesAdmin GUI interface is presented which is prohibiting automated processes.

Thanks for the info.

6

I believe this is due to an incorrect syntax in the command specified in the first post. Can you try:

“D:\Program Files (x86)\BigFix Enterprise\BES Server\BESAdmin.exe” /removecomputers /run
/removecomputersfile=“C:\BigFix_Working_Dir\awscomputers.txt”

3 Likes
7

That was it! Thanks again Aram :relaxed:

1 Like
8

By the way, this is the finished powershell script and works perfectly. Thanks again Aram for your catch on my command line. Pehaps this will be handy for others.

Set-ExecutionPolicy -Scope CurrentUser Unrestricted
Set-ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted Process
$file = "C:\BigFix_Working_Dir_Custom\awscomputers.txt"

####//Copy File
Copy-Item "D:\Program Files (x86)\BigFix Enterprise\BES Server\BESReportsData\ArchiveData\LastRunReports\1.dat" $file -force

####//Remove first line of file
Get-Content $file | Select-Object -Skip 1 | Out-File $file-temp -Force
Move $file-temp $file -Force

####//Verify that file has data before running besadmin tool
 if((Get-Item $file).length -gt 0kb){
 $Command = "D:\Program Files (x86)\BigFix Enterprise\BES Server\BESAdmin.exe"
 &$command /removecomputers /run /removecomputersfile=$file
 }
 else
 {
 }
####//count down before forcing tool closure - large deployment needs more time
start-sleep -s 10 

####// Kill Besadmin confirmation dialog in background 
$ProcessActive = Get-Process besadmin -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
if($ProcessActive -eq $null)
{
}
else
{
TaskKill /F /IM besadmin.exe /T
2 Likes