Defining BigFix Inventory Observer jobs

The Bigfix Inventory Observer is installed as part of the core installation procedure. Using the Bigfix Inventory Observer, you can define jobs that dynamically load Bigfix inventory data for analysis by Netcool Agile Service Manager.

Before you begin

Important: The BigFix Inventory Observer supports the on-premise BigFix Inventory version 9.5.

Ensure you have the Bigfix Inventory service details to hand, such as API token, SSL TrustStore and URL.

Remember: Swagger documentation for the observer is available at the following default location: https://<your host>/1.0/bigfixinventory-observer/swagger

About this task

The Bigfix Inventory Observer jobs extract Bigfix Inventory resources via REST. The Observer loads and updates the resources and their relationships within the Netcool Agile Service Manager core topology service.

bigfixinventory_observer_common.sh: The configuration file you use to customize Bigfix Inventory Observer settings.; The parameters defined here are then used by the bigfixinventory_observer_load_start.sh to trigger the Bigfix Inventory Observer jobs.
Tip: Alternatively, you can set the appropriate environment variables. If an environment variable is set, it takes precedence over the configuration file settings.

You define and start the following job. You must edit the parameters in the configuration file before running this job.

Full Topology Upload job: A transient (one-off) job that loads all requested topology data.; This job is started by the bigfixinventory_observer_load_start.sh script.

Procedure

To edit the parameters in the configuration file

Open the bigfixinventory_observer_common.sh configuration file and edit the following parameters:

Table 1. Bigfix Inventory Observer job parameters
Parameter	Action	Details
Unique ID	Enter a unique name for the job.	Required
BigFix Inventory API token	Enter the BigFix token for authentication.	Required. Must be encrypted.
BigFix Inventory instance URL	Specify the API URL of the BigFix Inventory endpoint (including port).	Required. Usually in the following format: https://`<hostname or IP address>`:`<port>`
Bigfix Inventory resources	Specify the resources to be discovered.	Optional. Lists supported values such as software, hardware or `*`. If left blank, all available resources are discovered.
Bigfix Inventory certificate	Specify the name of the certificate to be loaded into the trust store.	Required. For more details, see Configuring observer job security. On-prem Create and store the certificate OCP Obtain the authentication certificate using OpenSSL and store it as a secret
HTTPS trustStore file name	Specify the trustStore file name.	For both on-prem and OCP, provide the JKS name, and the observer will then create the JKS file accordingly.
trustStore file password	Specify the trustStore password to decrypt the HTTPS trustStore file.	Required. Must be encrypted.
SSL Validation	Choose whether SSL validation is on or off. Turning SSL validation off will use HTTPS without host verification.	Optional
Bigfix Inventory connection timeout (ms)	Enter the time at which the connection times out.	Optional. Must be a value greater than 0 (zero), and the default is 5000 (5 seconds).
Data Center	Specify the data center(s) in which the Bigfix Inventory instance runs. If more than one, list them (comma-separated).	Required. The default data center specified in `bigfixinventory_observer_common.sh` is sufficient for a default deployment. If you require more than one custom data centers, enter them as a comma-separated list.
Job schedule	Specify when the job should run, and whether it should run at regular intervals. By default the job runs immediately, and only once. Optionally you can specify a future date and time for the job to run, and then set it to run at regular intervals after that.	Optional. Transient (one-off) jobs only. If you set a job schedule, the run intervals must be at least 90 seconds apart, and if you set them at less than 15 minutes, a warning is displayed, as the frequency can impact system performance.
Observer job description	Enter additional information to describe the job.	Optional

Encryption requirement:

The Load job requires the api_token and truststore_password in the configuration file in encrypted form. To encrypt them, run the encrypt_password.sh script in the ASM_HOME/bin directory:

./bin/encrypt_password.sh

Enter and then confirm plain text versions of the token and password. The encryption utility will return encrypted versions.

To start the Load job

To start the Bigfix Inventory Observer Full Topology Upload job, use the following command:
```
$ASM_HOME/bin/bigfixinventory_observer_load_start.sh
```

Results

This job loads all requested topology data, and runs only once. Run this job whenever you need Bigfix Inventory topology data refreshed.

What to do next

You can also use the following scripts:

bigfixinventory_observer_load_stop.sh: Stops the Load job
bigfixinventory_observer_job_list.sh: Lists the status of current jobs
bigfixinventory_observer_log_level.sh: Sets the log level

Remember: As an alternative to being configured using the Observer Configuration UI, observer jobs have scripts to start and stop all available jobs, to list the status of a current job, and to set its logging levels. These scripts can be run with -h or --help to display help information, and with -v or --verbose to print out the details of the actions performed by the script, including the full cURL command. For the on-prem version of Agile Service Manager, observer scripts are configured for specific jobs by editing the script configuration files.