Bigfix root API /query response missing 'count'

Reporting
1

I am running a query against my 2 bigfix root servers v11.0.4 (each in a different BigFix deployments) by using the :52311/api/query?output=json&relevance=<some_relevance> endpoint.

I then use the ‘count’ key value in the json response. Today I noticed that for one of the root servers, there is no longer “count” in the json response but everything else is there and normal. I restarted the BES Root Server service and no change. The BES root Server exe hasn’t been changed. What would cause ‘count’ to disappear?

example from working root:
image

2

I think the count attribute is included when the session relevance is evaluated by BigFix Explorer. Can you verify that a BigFix Explorer instance is up/running for the given BigFix Root Server?

3

Correct. Explorer was down and after bringing it back up, count was returned in the json response.

  1. Why does Explorer need to be running for count to be returned? I was still getting valid results but just no count.
  2. So all calls against Root /api/query calls are routed to the Explorer to run the session relevance query (if Explorer is installed) ?
4

The count attribute was introduced with BES Explorer as an enhancement. And yes, calls to /api/query on the Root Server are forwarded and handled by BigFix Explorer if one is available (and if one is not available, Root Server will evaluate, in which case the results should still of course be accurate):

image
image891×297 24.5 KB

Note that you can have multiple instances of BigFix Explorer for a given Root Server to help with high availability.

5

idea created for the response to be consistent regardless if it comes from Explorer or Root and ‘count’ to be included.

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6

Is there a way to tell which of the API’s is responding to a query? I can imagine that BF Explorer is the strategic direction for accessing BigFix data since it offloads the Root Server. If this is the case, and if you won’t be keeping the API’s in synch, knowing whether the result is from the Root server or Explorer would be useful.

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7

I tried using the BES Explorer service for API Calls and I ended up powering it down since I had multiple issues with it. Sometimes the service will hang, sometimes it will crash. Also the BES Explorer seems to parse the request’s input differently when I tried an specific query that contains escaped characters I was getting errors. A lot of our queries would need change and that is not something we are intended to invest in(Not at the moment).

8

Thank you for the feedback here!

@adinia @bigfix.mark, FYI

9

Thank you for your feedback. We are very interested in understanding the problems you found and addressing them. Have you opened support tickets?
Thank you

10

Yes, I opened case #CS1065347 for the BESExplorer service randomly crashing.
I ended up stopping the service after it crashed again just after a couple of days I had closed the case.
The other “Limitation” is that when I run queries like the following:

(((value of results from(bes properties "CustomProperty") of it as string)| ("")) %26 "%252522" )of bes computers whose (name of it contains "Hostname")

Where I dynamically add doble quotes to the results to later build a json object using session relevance, the escaped characters are needed for the WR service to properly parse the request and I get the results I need. However, when I run the exact same query in BigFix Explorer it just can’t parse it and returns en error.

I have many queries that I have built over the years based on what the REST API running on the WR service can handle, and changing all these queries will requiring a lot of work for my org.
I didn’t open a case for this, though.

11

Thank you very much for the feedback.
Two problems have been identified and resolved; one has been fixed in 11.0.4 and the other one will be released in 11.0.5.

As for your input on relevance format, we will consider it.

Thank you

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