We have two servers that the BESClient service starts and runs, and after about 4-5 minutes while its going through merging and checking actions, just stops working. The service is still running but it just isnt doing anything. Nothing more updates in the logfile. I have tried uninstalling/reinstalling and also running the Bes removal utility. If I try to stop the service, it just sits in ‘stopping’ status and I have to use kill.exe just to kill besclient.exe. I have installed the latest besclient version as well. What can cause this behavior?
That is certainly strange and it is not something we see often at all…
Probably a matter best left to a support ticket, but I would suggest running the “BES Remove” (http://support.bigfix.com/bes/install/downloadutility.html#besremove) tool and reinstalling to make sure there was not any corrupted settings or data that was killing the agent.
We don’t have a way to control the agents if they are stopped. You could use the BES Client Deploy tool to reinstall the BES Client remotely, but it won’t do a full BES Remove.
BigFix uses Kill -10 1 to bring a solaris system in Single user mode, is this safe for installing kernel patches and patches that require the system to be booted to single user mode.
I have been finding that numerous agents out there are doing the same thing. They fall out of the console - and if I look at the system - the BES Client service is in a “stopping” status. A reboot does not resolve. These systems are running the latest client. Many of these systems in this state (seems to a dozen or more that I know of) I do not have access to them - and these are critical systems - so there is no option to do a full removal and then a remote deployment. Seems to have started happening with this latest build of the agent (7.0.9.164). Has there been any information found on this?
There is no errors in the log. On the last day that the agent successfully reported in (July 4th) - the last parts to the log show it doing it’s normal check of the action-sites. Last entry is “actionlogmessage: (action 10878) ending action”. So it completed it’s sync - but stopped responding to BES shortly after.
It was several days or more later that we noticed it not alive in BF. Tried stopping service - but wouldn’t stop. Reboot - has service coming back in “Stopped” mode. Uninstalled and reinstalled - same problem. Have not done the uninstall with the full removal tool yet though. If I push a reinstall with the deployment tool - it installs successfully - but service is still in “stopping” mode.
This agent had been upgraded to 7.09.164 about a month prior to it’s issue. I can’t be certain - but it appears that on July 4th when it stopped talking - it was also rebooted. So potentially the issue did not come up until after reboot.
I don’t know the full situation of some of the other agents that show similiar issue - I don’t have access to them.
This particular system is a critical box - so it is hard to do any real investigation. I clean out agents in the console that have talked in over 2-3 weeks. So it is hard to tell if I have been deleting systems that are in same situation. My workstation counts appear to be on check - but I can’t be certain if there are lots of them in this situation or just a couple. I appreciate your assistance on this.
So far it appears that the latest agent version has resolved many of these bes client service issues. Although it has meant manually installing in some cases - and in other cases using the removal tool and then installing the new version. At moment looks like we are ok. Thanks!