Failure to Synchronize - Failure Code 404

Usage and Config
1

I have several different virtual machines with varying configurations. Some have no problem communicating with my BigFix server. Others are constantly getting the message:

Failed to Synchronize - General Transport Failure - 'http://bigfix.lab.local ...' http failure code 404

I’m even seeing the same message on my BigFix server.

As I create new actions, they don’t show up on my relevant systems unless I restart the BES Client. Any ideas what I should be looking for to fix this?

Thanks,
Marc

2

I’m actually not sure about this. I would recommend opening a PMR with IBM to get that figured out. What version of BigFix are you running?

This sounds like a separate issue. This should mean that incoming UDP on port 52311 is blocked on the clients with this problem. They are not getting UDP notifications from the system to tell them that there is new content to gather and process. This means the client will wait until either its command polling interval or its gather interval to actually see the new action. Commnad polling is disabled by default on clients, and the gather interval is 24 hours by default, so this means you have to wait 24 hours or more to see if actions propagate or not. Clients may realize that there new items to gather after doing a relay select, which by default happens every 6 hours, so it may be 6 hours instead of 24 hours, but that may require automatic relay selection to be in use.

I feel that in most cases the gather interval could/should be set to 12 hours instead of 24 hours. I think the command polling interval should be set to every 6 hours on all clients and once an hour on all clients that do not get UDP notifications. Command polling and gather primarily impact the relays and much less so impact the root server, which is a good thing and allows them to be used more aggressively than if they impacted the root server itself significantly.

3

The error is all one line in the BESClient log. I can get it and post the entire entry if you prefer.

I have the action to open the Windows Firewall always running, so I’m not sure how UDP would be being blocked.

This is a lab environment, so how can I change either the command polling interval or gather interval to happen more frequently? What effect would this have on my clients?

Thanks,
Marc

4

It could be NAT or other network related things that prevent the UDP notifications from reaching the clients, not just the Windows Firewall.

There is a fixlet for that.

This should be in the BES Admin tool, or perhaps it is one of those things that must be set at install time and can never be changed.

Very little negative impact. I’m not sure what you mean by effect.

The error message and the actions requiring a restart of the client are 2 different things. 2 different problems to solve as far as I can tell.

It might not be a bad idea to post the entire log with any domains or IPs redacted.