BigFix is a tool provided by EEI that provides help with asset management and software patching and deployment. It is installed on all standard workstations that CSS IT supports. You will be prompted to allow BigFix to apply software and system patches to your computer as part of the regular maintenance cycles. The patch cycles are as follows.
Operating System : Once a month
Software : As needed, approximately twice a month
BigFix Notification
The message will generally give a brief summary of the patch to be applied, and a deadline for the patch to be applied. In particular:
- The deadline will vary depending on the importance, or severity, of the patch to be applied.
- You will have the option to Snooze the patch to be applied at a more convenient time up until this deadline.
- Clicking Take Action will allow the queued action to run, if the action requires you may be prompted to close certain applications.
- If closing of applications, or a restart is necessary, you will likely receive a confirmation message when clicking Take Action.
Once the action has begun you will see a popup on your screen indicating that the patch is in progress. This may popup a few times as the patch is downloaded, applying and complete. If a restart is required you will be prompted to restart the workstation.
These notices generally cannot be snoozed as the system needs to restart to complete the configuration.
- If you have any applications open you will want to save your work immediately.
- If you click Take Action you will be prompted for confirmation before the BigFix client restarts the computer.
- In macOS there can be a delay of up to a few minutes between initiating the restart and the system shutting down, do not manually restart the workstation at this time. Simply allow the client to restart as it may be completing work in the background.
- Once you are ready to restart the computer you can click Take Action, or wait for the countdown to complete.
Snoozing a Notification
To Snooze a notice select the duration until the notice will re-appear in the drop down and click Snooze. At the end of the selected duration the BigFix notice will reappear and prompt you for further action. As long as the stated deadline has not passed you can continue to snooze the notice.
Applying a Snoozed Patch
If you have snoozed a notice, but decide that you would like to apply the patch. You can manually launch BigFix by
- locating it in your Start Menu as IBM BigFix in Windows, or in the Applications folder of macOS as TriggerClientUI.
- Once the BigFix client has launched select the Progress tab
- Click on View Postponed Actions.