Attempting to install the WebUI for the first time. A few questions:
Trying to see what the best practice is of whether it should be on it’s own stand-alone server, or on our main BigFix server itself.
For the SQL side, I run the BigFix database on the main server. Do I enter those credentials into the Fixlet deployment portion, or is WebUI creating it’s own database? (We have database team at our company, and our department is limited in our database knowledge). I’m confused what exactly needs to be added for
I guess I’m confused what information is needed if install the WebUI on the main BigFix server that houses the database.
Take a look at the BigFix-Capacity-Planning-v9.x.15 guide located here. On page 35 there are some notes about WebUI placement that might help plus other stuff like hardware requirements. Assuming you are installing on the 9.5.x branch (WebUI v2) then there is no longer a database for WebUI (info about that also on page 35). The credentials you enter into the database connection fields would be for the SQL server that houses your BFEnterprise database.
I appreciate finding this post @Charlie.Hunt. We’re also looking to install WebUI the first time.
So a read of section 4.4.3 of the cap planning guide leaves the chose of local vs. remote WebUI up in the air (“in depends”), although the example of running on a virtual system vs. physical system is instructive. How would it be to have it running on something like our Compliance Analytics or Inventory server?
I think I read in the install guide that installing on an existing Relay box is also possible (maybe even recommended if not local). How would that affect Relay performance if it were a top level relay?
Allocating another VM is definitely possible here, but a pain in the behind. Just wondering if there are acceptable options with the existing VM allocation.
We just ran it locally on the BigFix Management server and it works fine. I think when I really dug into it, they (IBM) ultimately favored locally on your main server, so that’s what we did. Honestly, we don’t really use it.
I was never quite able to nail down automatic patching for several reasons (baselines too big, too much care around patching being released, etc). Our environment is just too critical to be allowing things to auto patch.
It became easier to just create the groups I needed (beta and OS based), curate the patches on my own/throw them into a baseline, action that baseline when the time was right. In actuality, it takes me like 10 minutes to do this, once a month. Don’t really need the WebUI for much.
@Charlie.Hunt Thanks for your response. You’ve also brought in a second aspect of all this: Why even install WebUI? What’s it good for?
From our perspective, I think there are two things we’re thinking will be most useful:
BigFix Query - Being able to run adhoc queries on the enterprise that run in a relatively short time could be handy. Just what those queries are going to be is an open question at the moment, but often we’re needing to find quick answers that may benefit from BF Query over Web Reports or session relevance in the debugger.
Limiting non-master operator actions - This one is probably the primary driver. We have a number of folks who currently have non-master operator access to our BigFix console who support workstations and use BigFix tasks and actions to respond to user support tickets. These operators often do things our master operators would rather them NOT do. Rather than attempt to adjust their access in BigFix Console more than it is, we’re thinking limiting them to WebUI access may be our best bet for imposing non-master operator limits.
So besides comments on installing WebUI, it would be great to hear how useful other folks find WebUI, and how they are using it.