Ah… so you arent trying to copy a file from one Windows computer to a Unix computer, you want to use an action to distribute a file to your Unix computer?
Let’s say if I place the file directly into the SHA1 folder after renaming the file to the SHA1 value of the file, can I perform the distribution directly?
Or do I need to follow through the flow, of downloading it, then let bigfix do the work?
Current situation is that the file I intended to distribute is on the bigfix machine itself:
You want to take a file that exists on the BigFix Server and deploy it to Unix BigFix Agents. Is that correct?
The method you used was basically to pre-cache the file, which should work, but you might get better results if you put the file in the Uploads folder so you can be sure it isn’t going to get removed from the cache… You would then do something like this:
This command instructs the agent to ask the server for this file. The url is the location the server will go to get the file. The reason we use HTTP is because that is how files are distributed in BigFix.
Here is what I think you are asking:
You want to take a file that exists on the BigFix Server and deploy it to Unix BigFix Agents. Is that correct?
The method you used was basically to pre-cache the file, which should work, but you might get better results if you put the file in the Uploads folder so you can be sure it isn’t going to get removed from the cache… You would then do something like this:
prefetch filename sha1:3c13a810c49ecef0291ea14877d37d0e81e9d00c size:249856 http://127.0.0.1:52311/Uploads/somefile
This command instructs the agent to ask the server for this file. The url is the location the server will go to get the file. The reason we use HTTP is because that is how files are distributed in BigFix.
Does that help and make sense?
Ben
Hi Ben,
This is a great explaination which I am indeed looking for.
Abit of things that I would like to further clarify.
Based on the prefetch url, do we need to ensure that the port 52311 is opened? Cause due to the environment I am in, we have blocked out all unnecessary ports.
Do we need to rename the file just like how we renamed it when we “precached” it manually or just leave it as it is? or the bigfix agent will do it automatically?
I seen __download in some fixlets, where does this __download point to? Only assumption that I can make out of it is that, __Download is the cache folder, but just to confirm, what is the path that it’s actually pointing to? Eg.
“C:\Program Files\BigFix Enterprise\BES Server\wwwrootbes\Uploads” - it will not exist by default but will be created when you use the Windows SOftware Distribution Wizard (just an example)
if port 52311 is not open then BES will not work, unless you have alredy told it to use another port. This is the same port that your clients use to communicate with the BES Server and BES Relays, that said, most firewalls will not affect you loop back interface anyway !
Using the URL provided, you do not need to rename your file. When that file is requested, BES Server will cache it from the url (i.e. it will cache it from itself) which is just like precaching. Then once it has cached it, it will provide it to your clients. Your clients will not directly use the url provided, but instead ask the BES Infrastructure to get the file.
because of the explaination of 3) : when the file is obtained by the client it is actually downloaded from the BES Server/Relays into __Download. So to move the file, it is located in a directory “__Download”. This is a path RELATIVE to where the action script is being executed, which is the site direcotry of your BES Client install, i.e.
c:\program files\bigfix enterprise\BES Client__BESData<your custom site or actionsite>__Download
So you could write a very log line:
copy
"c:\program files\bigfix enterprise\BES Client\__BESData\<your custom site or actionsite>\__Download\somefile.ext"
"/some/location/"
or you could use the relative path as shown in Ben’s response.
“C:\Program Files\BigFix Enterprise\BES Server\wwwrootbes\Uploads” - it will not exist by default but will be created when you use the Windows SOftware Distribution Wizard (just an example)
if port 52311 is not open then BES will not work, unless you have alredy told it to use another port. This is the same port that your clients use to communicate with the BES Server and BES Relays, that said, most firewalls will not affect you loop back interface anyway !
Using the URL provided, you do not need to rename your file. When that file is requested, BES Server will cache it from the url (i.e. it will cache it from itself) which is just like precaching. Then once it has cached it, it will provide it to your clients. Your clients will not directly use the url provided, but instead ask the BES Infrastructure to get the file.
because of the explaination of 3) : when the file is obtained by the client it is actually downloaded from the BES Server/Relays into __Download. So to move the file, it is located in a directory “__Download”. This is a path RELATIVE to where the action script is being executed, which is the site direcotry of your BES Client install, i.e.
c:\program files\bigfix enterprise\BES Client__BESData<your custom site or actionsite>__Download
So you could write a very log line:
copy
"c:\program files\bigfix enterprise\BES Client__BESData<your custom site or actionsite>__Download\somefile.ext"
"/some/location/"
or you could use the relative path as shown in Ben’s response.
hope that helps
Garreth
Hi,
Thanks alot for the information. Helps a great deal in understanding more on the action scripts, and on what they’re doing.
Managed to get it working, just a simple transfer of file from a window machine to a remote solarix unix machine, and it’s a good enough starter for me currently.