Problem: Machine looks "new" to Big fix after reverting to snapshot

Usage and Config Platform
1

(imported topic written by deschodt91)

Our server guys have a situation where some servers are getting “cleaned up” every night by reverting to a snapshot automatically at midnight. They would like to schedule a BigFix push immediately after that, to patch them after they come back up…

Problem is: When the machine reverts to a previous snapshot, it comes back up in the console as a

new

instance of itself. So when they schedule the job on the old/current instance, that job never happens since the machine reboots as a new clone of itself (old instance with the task is grey)… I see why this happens, the console is smart enough to realize the machine is slightly different…

Is there a way(setting, trick, hack) to fool the BF client or the console into accepting this is and will remain the same machine, and not creating a new instance of it ? (happens daily, so after a week you have 7 instances of the same server x the amount of servers, 6 grey, one black “good” one)

PS: We’re going to experiement with stopping the BF client immediately after the snapshot is taken, then leaving it off all day. And renabling it after the server is reverted to the snapshot. hopefully that’ll mean it remains the same machine on the console !

2

(imported comment written by sthull)

Hi deschodt,

The issue occurs because the client attempts to register and report using old sequence numbers after reverting to the snapshot. This triggers our duplicate detection mechanism which inactivates the old client and forces it to register as a new one to prevent the data for that client from getting trampled in the database by another system. Stopping the client right after taking the snapshot should work to prevent that.

Alternatively, you could target the patching action by retrieved property or by computer name (assuming there aren’t other systems with the same name). Then even when the system comes back as a new one, it will still pick up the action. To eliminate the duplicate computers in the console, you can run our BESComputerRemover utility with the -D option. It’s available at http://support.bigfix.com/bes/install/downloadutility.html#bescomputerremove

Regards,

Steve