I’m trying to create a report that will show users all data that is collected from their machines. This is to alleviate transparency and trust issues in academia.
I’m thinking there are two ways to do this:
I have tried #1, but keep crashing the web interface once I start adding a bunch of properties/columns.
I have yet to try #2, but I’m not even sure that it’s possible.
Has anyone done anything like this?
Sounds pretty complex.
Are you interested in telling them about the Actions & changes that have been deployed to their machine (“Action History”), or do you want to show them the results of Analysis properties that are being retrieved from their machine?
There’s an Action History database on the client that can be queried with SQLite (I don’t recall where it is though). For Analysis results, I did a little digging and it looks like they’re stored in plain text in each operator site.
C:\Program Files (x86)\BigFix Enterprise\BES Client\__BESData\opsite142\__Local>dir
Volume in drive C is OSDisk
Volume Serial Number is 4A23-A18A
Directory of C:\Program Files (x86)\BigFix Enterprise\BES Client\__BESData\opsite142\__Local
06/24/2016 04:08 PM <DIR> .
06/24/2016 04:08 PM <DIR> ..
06/24/2016 11:19 AM 51,443 FileList
06/24/2016 11:19 AM <DIR> Get
06/24/2016 04:07 PM 187,434 SiteData
06/24/2016 04:07 PM <DIR> Tmp
03/02/2016 05:26 PM 331 __OmittedFileList
06/24/2016 04:08 PM 92 __PropertyList_16857498
06/24/2016 04:08 PM 337 __PropertyList_281532
06/24/2016 04:08 PM 92 __PropertyList_373818
...
06/18/2016 07:17 PM 48 __results_16857498
06/24/2016 03:53 PM 593 __results_281532
06/22/2016 04:17 AM 176 __results_373818
C:\Program Files (x86)\BigFix Enterprise\BES Client\__BESData\opsite142\__Local>type __PropertyList_16857498
[¶ ]PropertyListStart-2 ╛^V[☻ ]1 ╛UKW°FÅT·♫ [☻ ]2 ╛UKW°FÅT·♫ [► ]PropertyListEnd
C:\Program Files (x86)\BigFix Enterprise\BES Client\__BESData\opsite142\__Local>type __results_16857498
1i: string
1: Win7
2i: string
2: EnterpriseCould you just use session relevance to dump all the properties of a computer and their values?
I’ll test this when i get home, but something like this:
(Display name of it, value of result of it) of elements of Reported property set of bes computer
You can use table rows and you can probably group it by the analysis it’s a part of to get a result that’s kind of like the bes console computer detail view
Correct I was trying to pull the retrieved properties.
I’ve never used session relevance, is there a good guide for it?
I think that is exactly what I’m looking for, some client dashboard that the user clicks on and goes “ah, that’s what they are pulling form this system”… of course it would be way too much information, but it would appease the paranoid.
Hahahahahaha 
Unfortunately there really isn’t anything other than blood sweat and tears to help learn session relevance.
The syntax is the same as normal relevance and the properties and objects are outlined here: http://support.bigfix.com/inspectors/Session%20Objects_Any.html
You can use it over the REST API or the custom tab of Web Reports:
Try this (replacing, “BIGFIX” with a computer name):
<?relevance (name of property of it, values of it) of property results of bes computer whose (name of it = "BIGFIX") ?>
It will be fairly verbose but it can give you a good start.
That was fairly amazing.
It seams to pick up globally activated properties and values, but not the locally activated ones… damn. It actually does the locally activated ones as long as the result is not an error/null
Is it possible to include session relevance inside of a client dashboard so that I can have a user click on the BigFix icon and click a “All information collected about my computer” tab? Or is session relevance not usable there?
I’m still looking on a primer for creating client dashboards, if you find a good link I’m happy to RTFM, but my search skills have led me in circles.
Doesn’t really exist, unfortunately.
Hey! That’s not true!
I did a talk on the client UI at the user group
The challenge with the ClientUI is you do not have access to session relevance as session relevance only works on the root server.
I’m also pretty sure that the Client UI also cannot access Analysis or Fixlet results like you can in Session Relevance. As such – you’re essentially stuck recreating each relevance statement that you want to show in the Client UI. The big problem is that the Client UI doesn’t appear for the user until it has crunched all the embedded relevance. If you’re using expensive relevance it could be ~30 seconds before the ClientUI appears after login and then the data is cached until the user refreshes the dashboard.
I was just looking into this.
Not session relevance sadly, just the regular relevance.
That is actually what I was trying to do here: https://bigfix.me/relevance/details/3019335
( name of parent folder of it, (following text of first "Fixlet " of it | it) of preceding texts of lasts ".fxf" of name of it, ( (following texts of firsts "X-Property-ID: " of it) of next lines of it, (following texts of firsts "Subject: " of it) of it, (it;next lines of it) whose(it != "" AND it does not start with "--F5A") of next lines of next lines of next lines of it) of next lines of lines containing "Content-Type: application/x-bigfix-itclient-property" of it) of files whose( name of it ends with ".fxf" AND (name of it starts with "Fixlet " OR name of it contains "nalys") AND name of it does not start with "Subscription" AND exists lines containing "Content-Type: application/x-bigfix-itclient-property" of it) of folders of data folders of clients
I haven’t tried making a ClientUI dashboard as of yet, but I wonder if it allows for javascript to evaluate relevance async instead of using <?Relevance ?> style.
files "TriggerClientUI.exe" of folders "AppData\Local\Temp\BES\ClientUI" of folders of folders "C:\Users"
Here are some work in progress dashboards:
The _dashboard.html is the important bit.
If you want to make everything a bit more optimal, you can only look at Analyses.fxf and Questions.fxf in every action site as those contain all the content that returns actual data values. Every other .fxf file only returns relevant or not.