BBPE UNIX/Linux client

Before installing the Big Brother client, you should have a running installation of the Big Brother server on your network. The client software can only provide information through a Big Brother server. At a minimum, one working BBDISPLAY server is required.

NOTE: If you are installing a BBPE client on the same machine you just installed the BBPE management server on you can skip the user creation section below and start reading at step 1 where the download begins.

Big Brother should be installed by root and should have its own operating system user (usually bb) to run the software. On most UNIXs you can use the following commands to create the BB user:

  • useradd -d /home/bb -c "Big Brother" -s /bin/sh bb


    • Now give the bb user a password by executing:

  • passwd bb



    • Now that the bb operating system user has been created you'll need to download the Big Brother Professional Edition software and get it installed.

    These procedures are for installing Big Brother Professional Edition v4.20 on Solaris (Sparc) 5.10, other UNIX/Linux platforms will have the same procedures.

    1. Download the BBCLT-solaris5.10-sparc-bbc4.20-bbpe.tar (the name may be different depending on where you downloaded from) tarball and save it on the Desktop of your PC. (I downloaded the BBServer and BBClient for Solaris 10 (Sparc) directly from Quest Software's SupportLink)



    2. FTP the tarball from your desktop to the destination machine.
    (I always use a command prompt, but, you may use whatever FTP tool you're most familiar with)

  • Open a command prompt and change directories to your Desktop, then, FTP the BBClient tarball from your Desktop to the destination machine. From your command prompt execute the following commands highlighted in the image below:



    3. Telnet, or, SSH (login) to the bbclient as the bb user, verify that the BBClient tarball exists, then, untar it! From the same command prompt execute the following commands highlighted in the image below:

    NOTE: If telnet is not available, you can use putty, or, ssh and the procedures will be the same.

    4. After the tarball has been inflated, change directories to the Big Brother "install" (bbc4.20-bbpe/install) directory:

  • cd bbc4.20-bbpe/install


    • Now, switch users to root:

  • su root


    • Execute the bbconfig installation script:

  • ./bbconfig




    • The installation starts with the Software License Agreement and you must accept the license before the installation will continue. After you accept the license agreement, the configuration begins as highlighted in the image below:

  • Confirm your operating system, BBPE is pretty good at guessing your OS correctly.

  • Enter the Big Brother software owner, this is usually bb.

  • Enter the Big Brother display server's (BBDISPLAY) fully qualified domain name.

  • Enter the Big Brother pager server's (BBPAGER) fully qualified domain name.




    • The bbconfig script completes and tells you to execute the following command to start the BBClient software. DON'T DO THAT! Before you can start the BBClient software, the client itself must know who its BBDISPLAY and BBPAGER servers are. There servers are defined in the BBClient/etc/bb-hosts file. The contents of a BBClient/etc/bb-hosts file must include the BBClient itself and its BBServer, a typical BBClient/etc/bb-hosts file will look like:

    10.2.3.1 bbserver.domain.com # testip BBDISPLAY BBPAGER BBNET
    10.2.3.2 bbclient.domain.com # testip

    Once you have a valid BBClient/etc/bb-hosts file you can start up the BBClient software to monitor local system information like cpu, disk space, processes and more...

    To start the BBClient software, as the 'bb' OS user execute '$BBHOME/runbb.sh start'. Shortly after the BBClient starts you'll see several new test columns on BBDISPLAY:



    Now you can add more devices to your BBServer/etc/bb-hosts file and install more BBClients...

    Happy monitoring :o)