Where is BigFix Client "Locked" setting stored on macOS?

So, I thought that the answer to this question was “/Library/Preferences/com.bigfix.BESAgent.plist” in the __LockState key. However, after locking a macOS client, I’ve made that file read-only and immutable and can still unlock the client. The plist still shows -r–r--r- and schg,uchg with a modified date of 30 minutes before my last unlock, so it can’t be stored there, can it? :astonished:

Just changed the custom “Department” setting on this client at my desk to “ITSO” through the console. The client logs show “Command succeeded setting “Department”=“ITSO” on “Tue, 24 Oct 2017 19:21:16 +0000” for client (action:85290112)”. Both the Full Console and Web Console show “Department”=“ITSO”.

BUT

The com.bigfix.BESAgent.plist contains no such setting and QnA on the client returns the following:
Q: setting "Department" of client E: Singular expression refers to nonexistent object.

What’s going on here? :frowning:

Try stopping the client and see if it writes the settings to disk.

It wrote data to a temp file (com.bigfix.BESAgent.plist.[random string]) that appeared and disappeared pretty quickly, then created a new computer entry in the database upon service restart. I’m calling this effort a failure. No read-only locks on macOS.

Yeah the plist needs to be writable always by the agent so changing it to RRR caused wondrous things to happen including the reset. The __LockState setting is in a dictionary inside 2 other dictionaries inside the plist and can be read by the setting command (as its in one of the readable locations by relevance). The layout is the same as on a Windows registry. The following is done on a Mac running QnA

Q: setting "__LockState" of client
A: __LockState=false
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