(imported comment written by MBARTOSH)
In our environment a login script is not a good idea because of bandwidth contraints. A logon script ill at least download the batch file everytime a user logs on. I am not sure but it may also copy setup.exe also.
Bigfix needs discovery with automatic client installation, like SCCM.
Just noticed this thread while looking for something else. The client MSI installer generated at install time (located in the \BESInstallers\ClientMSI folder) DOES have the masthead built in and you can run it as-is without the need to copy over the masthead or any other trickery. It has been this way as far back as version 8.2… if not longer. The documentation is wrong and needs to be updated. I will get a bug opened to get that sorted out.
I should add that this is how it works for Windows-based installations. I am not 100 percent sure about RHEL-based installations. Maybe someone can chime on on that. I do not have a RHEL install nearby at the moment to check.
Yes the installation generator will shove the masthead into the MSI (into the registry). I have already on the list to get the utility that we use inside there pulled out so it can be used by some people to update the masthead periodically as well, and for those users that have Linux servers to do the same work on the MSI we ship in that package.
One way to periodically update the masthead in the MSI generated by the installers is to actually click ‘Change’ within Add/Remove Programs (or Programs and Features on newer Windows OS), then select ‘I want to replace the masthead file in my installation’:
I believe that is correct. 9.2.6.94 should be the only version where the above approach does not work (the issue was introduced in 9.2.6, and fixed with 9.2.7).
Thanks for the prompt response.
So, there is no way to bundle the masthead with the msi file? or do we have to manually copy paste it to the agent dir.
In order to use the 9.2.6 MSI, the file will need to be updated to inject the actionsite masthead. There is a method to do this (the details of which I am working to publish), but in the meantime, please feel free to PM me directly on this and I can try to assist.
any updates on this?
Is it possible to just edit the MSI in Orca and add something there?
If you require a 9.2.6 Client MSI with a particular actionsite masthead, PM me, and I will try to assist (unfortunately, I haven’t had a chance to publish the details around this…stay tuned however, as I’ll be updating this post shortly!).
Otherwise, the method I previously outlined ( Making a BigFix MSI ) allows you to generate an MSI with the desired masthead.
I did some digging with Orca.
It seems the masthead info is in the Registry table of the MSI.
There is also a MASTHEADFILE entry in the MSI property table
The SOFTWARE\BigFix\EnterpriseClient\GlobalOptions\ActionMasthead value seems to be very close to the size of the contents of the masthead file in a hexadecimal representation with #x on the front.
("#x" & it) of (it as hexadecimal) of concatenations of (characters it) of bytes (integers in(0,size of it)) of files "C:\Program Files (x86)\BigFix Enterprise\BES Installers\Server\actionsite.afxm"
This seems to go in the ActionMasthead value in the SOFTWARE\BigFix\EnterpriseClient\GlobalOptions\ActionMasthead 32bit reg key.
We have plans to publish a tool/utility that will allow injecting or modifying the actionsite masthead into a BigFix Client MSI. More details to come very shortly…
Glad to hear it.
I haven’t tested it, but Orca should work just fine using the details I posted above.
It would be useful if the tool could ingest both a masthead and a clientsettings.cfg into the MSI. Maybe feature for a future version to keep in mind.
Just seeing this post, but I’ve used Orca to add/change the masthead a few times - usually when I also want to build in other properties so I don’t need to add a config file. Some will argue it’s just easier to chuck a .cfg along side, but there’s also something quite neat a bout a single MSI with everything built in. Got to nail the naming conventions though - otherwise you quickly loose track of one MSI to another 
Following up on this thread, please see the recently published Client MSI Editing Tool:
Does this tool work with any BigFix MSI from any version?
Would the tool have any issues with an MSI that was edited to include client settings previously?
It should work with any BigFix MSI yes. It merely places the masthead into the correct “standard” place for the MSI install.
As to interfering with another change made with Orca… not to my knowledge but it wasn’t tested. I do see a good update to do that work (pull in a .cfg file) for the future.
Hi all,
I’d like to add into MSI bigfix client package a configuration file in order the install the client and connect directly to a relay (nor root server). But from documentation I saw, it seems that it is not works for the MSI package.
Could I add registry keys in the package to overcome the problem ? Has anyone tried this scenarios ?
If you add registry items that should work. The MS Orca tool or something else can do this.