Change heartbeat setting for select group of computers

Usage and Config Platform
1

(imported topic written by SystemAdmin)

Under file-preferences it’s possible to change the heartbeat time for ALL client computers. I’m wondering if there is a way to change the heartbeat time for only a select group of computers? Is there a client setting that could changed/created to do this?

Thanks

2

(imported comment written by BenKus)

Hey j2johnson,

The heartbeat is a global setting and cannot be changed on per computer basis… Can you simply increase the heartbeat for all the computers?

Ben

3

(imported comment written by SystemAdmin)

My end goal is to change how often certain computers check in with the parent/relay server as I will have serveral groups of machine operating behind firewalls which won’t have the UDP open to the client. Carolyn suggested setting the _BESClient_Comm_CommandPollEnable computer settings to accomplish this. I believe this is more along the lines of what I’m trying to acomplish than simply setting the hearbeat value. My understanding is this will allow clients which do receive the UDP packet to gather relevant tasks and fixlets on a schedule using the _BESClient_Comm_CommandPollIntervalSeconds value. I thought this happened automatically with the heartbeat but rather depends on the gathering interval set in the masthead. Using these client properties basically allow the gathering internval to be configured differently for different groups of computers.

4

(imported comment written by BenKus)

That is correct. Heartbeats report information from the agent and “gathering” or “polling” gets the new information from the server…

More info here:

http://support.bigfix.com/cgi-bin/kbdirect.pl?id=185

UDP is definitely not required for BigFix to work properly, but in general most people try to open their firewalls so that the UDP can be received because it just makes everything work faster and gives you better control. A common way to handle firewall or NAT situations is to put a relay on the same side of the NAT/firewall as the agents and then configure the NAT/firewall to allow connections from the server just to the relay. If you do that, then the relay will be in charge of sending the UDP and you won’t need to worry about the firewall anymore.

Ben