Our environment is continuing to expand and we want to convert an existing relay into a top-level relay and have the remaining relays communicate to it to offload our main BES server. I am not seeing any official documentation from Bigfix on this specific setup/approach so wanted to reach out here as well. I also have a case opened with support, but am awaiting feedback.
From what I’ve gathered from various forums, Relay designation is done at the client setting level so basically designate our top-level relay -> manually point that to the main BES server -> Manually point remaining relays to top-level relays. We attempted this by setting an ad-hoc relay to point to this new designated top-level relay, however we are seeing the following errors on this new child relay:
PeriodicTasks (2460) - GetExpectedVersionOfParent Error: Parent response did not contain a site version
DNS resolution is good between main BES server, top-level relay, and child relay. 52311 is opened as well as ICMP. Is there something we are missing here with implementing this?
This was corrected by taking a new designated relay for the top-level relay, pointing it directly at the main BES server -> performing a refresh -> then installing the relay component. On the designated child relays -> point them to the main BES server -> Force refresh -> point to newly desired top-level relay -> Install BES Relay component.
NOTE: If you are modifying existing relays to adjust architecture you should remove the relay role -> point to main BES server -> allow it to gather -> delete the Bigfix Relay directory -> repoint to top-level relay -> install BES Relay component.
I’m not sure what issue you encountered during your setup, but uninstalling/reinstalling the relay to rearrange the topology is not required nor is it best practice.
The issue experienced was the error I noted in the initial thread “PeriodicTasks (2460) - GetExpectedVersionOfParent Error: Parent response did not contain a site version”. Per HCL support, that was the direction given to correct this and has been working since then. I can only hope the info they are providing is always best practice since it is coming from the platform team that owns the product 
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Austin4778 -
What version are you using?
I am on version 9.5.13.130 and have 145 Relays as part of a two company BigFix consolidation with international locations. We have about 6 Relays in our data centers and all the other Relays are in offices or resort locations.
I have a semi-constant number of clients that use the Root Server as their relay 326 to 425 out of 16,500 computers that I have not been able to get them to use a real Relay (using Automatic, pondering manual settings if below doesn’t work…)
I have a new server without the Relay Role yet and trying to figure out the steps and settings to keep the regular computers off it and just have my manually set Relays.
Any info is appreciated. Thanks!