Can someone please help me out and point me in the right direction to a configuration\install document for the Software Distribution module. We are just starting to use this piece of BigFix and I have it successfully licensed and showing in our Lifecycle domain, but for some reason cannot seem to find any documentation on how to get it up and going. I was able to find the User Guide, but it seems to be how to use the product once installed. Any help would be great. Thanks.
Did you read the SWD user’s guide? The simplest answer is to load the “Manage Software Distribution” dashboard, install any necessary pre-reqs (the dashboard should tell you), and just create packages based on what you need. The dashboard uses Flash so you have to make sure Flash for Internet Explorer is installed/enabled.
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I did look through the User Guide, cant say that I read the entire document. I seen where I needed to install the BES Server Plugin Service before installing the other three task. Thing is once I installed the BES Server Plugin Service now all the other three task are grayed out. The new service seems to have installed correctly and is up and running. Stuck from here since no other clear documentation on how to configure.
The Software Distribution Download Plugin doesn’t require the BES Server Plugin Service to be installed, so it should’ve came up as relevant. Do you have any computers subscribed to the SWD site because if you’re saying that task isn’t relevant and you never installed it, then the only thing I can think of is that you don’t have computers subscribed to the SWD site. The BES Server Plugin Service is in a different site (specifically the BES Support site), which is why you can install that.
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The below verbiage comes directly from the BigFix 9.5 user guide. Unless I am miss understanding what it is saying the BES Server Plugin service does need to be installed first. You are correct on not having any computers subscribed to the site as of yet, but I don’t see why that would make the main supporting task be grayed out as they are meant to be run on the root server. I will try subscribing our root server to the site and see if that makes any difference.
"Before you can use the dashboard, you must deploy the tasks that are listed in the
Install Server Tools under the Software Distribution Setup node.
These tasks include:
- TEM Server: Install TEM Upload Maintenance Service for Software Distribution
- TEM Server: Upgrade TEM Upload Maintenance Service
- TEM Server: Register Download Plug-in for Software Distribution
Note: The TEM Server: Install TEM Upload Maintenance Service for Software
Distribution task is not relevant until the BES Server Plugin Service is installed on
the BigFix server. The BES Server Plugin Service task, which schedules other
services to run, must be run before any other setup tasks."
I believe that’s correct, and you do need the root server to be subscribed to the SWD site for the SWD server installation tasks to become relevant for it.
:edit: technically I think both statements are correct. You could probably register the SWDDownloadPlugin independently of the Server Plugin Service and the Upload Maintenance Service, but you’ll need all of them to use the dashboards anyway.
The Server Plugin and Upload Maintenance services deal more with using the Console to get SWD packages into the server; and the SWDDownloadPlugin deals more with how clients and relays retrieve your packages during action executions.
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JasonWalker is correct. The SWD Download Plugin requires the root server since it handles how files are transferred between client/relay and the server. Additionally, the SWD Download Plugin can be installed independently of the other two.
There is a mistake in the documentation saying the BES Server Plugin Service is required before anything else (it’s only required for the Upload Maintenance service). In the past, it was required but not anymore, so that part of the documentation is outdated. I’ll inform the documentation team and have it updated.
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Adding the root server to the SWD site seems to have fixed my problem. Once I added, the other task became applicable and I was able to install. One thing to note on the documentation. Even the task itself in the Note states that the BES server plugin service needs to be installed before the task itself can be run. Either way looks like I up and running, now on to building and deploying some packages. Thanks again guys for lending a hand.
Hi, I’m also facing the same issue.
I have installed the BESServer Plugin Service, subscribed all the clients to Software Distribution site, registered the Download Plug-in for software distribution but still IBM BigFix Server: Install IBM BigFix Upload Maintenance Service for Software Distribution task remains irrelevant. When I checked the relevance expressions I found the expression checking the client version should greater than 8 and less than 9.1, but our client version is 9.5.9.62.
Please anyone help me out with this.
Thanks
As stated in a previous comment, the Upload Maintenance Service is not a requirement anymore, which is why the relevance has the applicability for anything less than BES 9.1.
Thanks @zevanty, will follow the same approach. But still the BigFix documentation encourages to run the Upload Maintenance Service task, guess it needs to be updated.