KACE Systems Management Appliance 13.2 Common Documents

Create Managed Installations for Mac OS X devices

You can create Managed Installations for Mac OS X devices as needed.

To distribute applications to managed devices, you must attach the digital assets, which are the files required for installation, to the application. In addition, you must select the supported operating systems for the application. See Attach digital assets to applications and select supported operating systems.

Go to the Managed Installation Detail page:

Log in to the appliance Administrator Console, https://appliance_hostname/admin. Or, if the Show organization menu in admin header option is enabled in the appliance General Settings, select an organization in the drop-down list in the top-right corner of the page next to the login information.

On the left navigation bar, click Distribution, then click Managed Installations.

Select Choose Action > New.

Select the application in the Software drop-down list.

By default, the KACE Agent attempts to install the PKG file using the following command:

installer -pkg packagename.pkg -target / [Run Parameters]

If you have selected a DMG, ZIP, or TGZ, the contents are unpacked and the root directory is searched for all PKG files. The installation command runs against each of these PKG files and processes them in alphabetical order.

Next, the appliance searches for all plain applications (APP) on the top level of the archive and copies them to the Applications folder using the following command:

ditto -rscs Application.app /Applications/Application.app

To run a script or change any of these command lines, you can specify the appropriate script invocation as the Full Command Line. You can specify wildcards in the filenames you use. Enclose the filename in single or double quotation marks if it contains spaces. The files are extracted into a directory in /tmp, and that becomes the current working directory of the command.

TIP: If you only want to run your script on Mac OS X, you do not need to include any other files in your archive.

If the package requires additional options, provide the following information:

Option

Description

Name

A name that identifies the Managed Installation. This name appears on the Managed Installations page.

Execution

The package deployment setting. Options include:

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Disabled: Do not deploy the package.

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Anytime: Deploy the package at the next opportunity, such as the next time the KACE Agent reports inventory information to the appliance.

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At bootup: Deploy the package the next time the device starts up.

NOTE: If a device has an Active Directory or Group Policy Object setting that displays a message that the user must acknowledge before logging on, packages are not deployed and scripts do not run until the message is acknowledged.

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After login: Deploy the package after the user logs in but before the desktop loads.

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While user logged in: Deploy the package while the user is logged on.

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While user logged off: Deploy the package only when the device is running and the user is logged off.

Inventory

Indicate if you want to deploy the software title from Cataloged Software or all Software by selecting one of these options.

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To search for a specific title, begin typing in the Software or Cataloged Software field.

NOTE: Reclaiming unused software licenses only. The name of the software that you want to uninstall appears in this field by default. For more information, see Reclaim unused software licenses.

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If you want to display only the software that has one or more associated files, select Only Display Software With an Associated File.

Associated File

A Software and Cataloged Software title can have one or more files attached to them, as needed. Indicate if you want to select a specific file associated with the selected software title.

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Choose associated file: Select this option if you want to associate a file. You can select a file in the list. If you know the file name, start typing it in the box, and select it from the available entries in the list.

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Do not associate file: Select this option if you do not want to associate a file.

Alternate Location

Specify a location from which files can be downloaded for a specific Managed Installation.

Path: Enter the location where the KACE Agent can retrieve digital installation files.

Checksum: Enter an alternate checksum (MD5) that matches the MD5 checksum on the remote file share. If no checksum is entered, the digital asset on the file share must match the digital asset associated with the deployment package on the appliance. Also, the target path must include the complete filename (for example, \\fileserver_one\software\adobe.exe). You can create the checksum using any tool, including KDeploy.exe, which is installed with the KACE Agent.

To create the checksum using KDeploy.exe:

On a device with the KACE Agent installed, open a command prompt or terminal window.

Go to the Quest KACE installation directory. For example:

Windows 32-bit devices: C:\Program Files\Quest\KACE

Windows 64-bit devices: C:\Program Files (x86)\Quest\KACE

Mac OS X devices: /Library/Application Support/Quest/KACE/bin

Enter the following command: KDeploy -hash=filename

Where filename is the UNC path to the file. If the path contains spaces, enclose the entire path in double quotation marks.

Press Ctrl C or Command C to copy the MD5 checksum. You can then paste it into other files, such as Notepad.

Credential: The details of the service account required to connect to the device and run commands. Select existing credentials from the drop-down list, or select Add new credential to add credentials not already listed. See Add and edit User/Password credentials.

NOTE: If the target device is part of a replication label, the appliance does not fetch applications from the alternate download location. You can edit an existing label or create a label to specify the alternate location globally. Because that label cannot be specific to any Managed Installation, you cannot specify an alternate checksum that matches the checksum on the remote file share.

See Distributing packages from alternate download locations and Replication Shares and Add or edit manual labels.

Default Installation

You do not need to specify an installation command. The server runs the installation command by itself. The Mac OS X device tries to install the package using this command:

installer -pkg packagename.pkg -target / [Run Parameters]

ditto -rsrc packagename.app /Applications/theapp

If you have specified an archive file, this command runs against all of the PKG files or APP files it can find.

Override Default Installation

Specify the full command-line parameters. See the MSI Command Line documentation for available runtime options.

NOTE: When using a DMG package, the command line should be relative to the file path of the mounted DMG file.

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Uninstall: Uninstall the application from the command line.

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Run Command Only (do not download file): Run the command line only.

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Don’t Prepend msiexec.exe: Prevent the appliance from adding msiexec.exe to the beginning of the file.

Delete Downloaded Files

Delete the files when the deployment is complete.

ITNinja

Deployment tips from ITNinja. These tips are available only if you share usage data. See Configure data sharing preferences.

NOTE: User notification messages are not available on Mac OS X devices.

Specify deployment settings:

Option

Description

All Devices

Deploy to all devices. Clear the check box to limit the deployment to specific labels or devices.

Labels

Limit deployment to devices that belong to specified labels. To select labels, click Edit, drag labels to the Limit Deployment to window, then click Save.

If you select a label that has a Replication Share or an alternate download location, the appliance copies digital assets from that Replication Share or alternate download location instead of downloading them directly from the appliance.

NOTE: The appliance uses a Replication Share before it uses the KACE Alt Location.

Devices

Limit deployment to specific devices. In the drop-down list, select the devices to which you want to deploy the application. To filter the list, type a few characters in the Devices field. The number next to the field indicates the number of devices available.

NOTE: Reclaiming unused software licenses only. Any devices from which you want to remove the applicable software are listed. You can edit the list of devices, as needed. To remove the software from all devices, simply select , as described above. For more information, see Reclaim unused software licenses.

Select Schedule options:

The time, in 24-hour clock format, for package deployment to start and end. The Deployment Window time affects all Action options. Also, the run intervals defined in the appliance Settings interact with or override the deployment window of specific packages.

Order

The order in which to install or uninstall applications. The lowest value is deployed first. If an install action and an uninstall action both have the same order value, the uninstall action is performed first.

NOTE: Managed Installations are always deployed in order, regardless of whether their specified software packages come from the Software Catalog or the Software list. Managed Installations with a lower deploy order always prevent other Managed Installations from running until they are successfully installed or exceed the specified retry times.

Maximum Attempts

The maximum number of attempts, between 0 and 99, to indicate the number of times the appliance tries to install the package. If you specify 0, the appliance attempts to install the package indefinitely.

Click Save.

For more information, see:

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Distributing software and using Wake-on-LAN

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Using Managed Installations

Create and use File Synchronizations

Using File Synchronizations, you can push out any type of file to Agent-managed devices.

File Synchronizations enable you to distribute files to managed devices. Unlike Managed Installations, however, File Synchronizations do not install files; they simply distribute files. Use File Synchronizations to copy files of any type to managed devices.

The string KACE_ALT_Location in the Alternate Location field is replaced with the value assigned by the corresponding label. You should not have a device in more than one label with an Alternate Location specified.

Go to the File Synchronizations list:

On the left navigation bar, click Distribution, then click File Synchronizations.

Select Choose Action > New.

If this option is unavailable, there are no applications with the associated files in inventory. See Attach digital assets to applications and select supported operating systems.

In the Configure section, provide the following information:

Option	Description
Enabled	Enable the File Synchronization. When the KACE Agents on selected devices check in to the appliance, the file is distributed.
Name	A name that identifies the File Synchronization. This name appears on the File Synchronizations page.
Path	The directory location, on target devices, to which you want to save the file.
Create Path	Create the location specified in the Path field if it does not already exist.
Credentials	The details of the service account required to connect to the device and run commands. Select existing credentials from the drop-down list, or select Add new credential to add credentials not already listed. See Add and edit User/Password credentials.
File	The file to be distributed to target devices. To appear on the list, applications must have associated files in inventory. See Attach digital assets to applications and select supported operating systems.
Do Not Uncompress Distribution	Prevent the appliance from uncompressing files.
Persist	Confirm that the file does not already exist on target devices before attempting to distribute it.
Create Shortcut	Create a desktop shortcut to the file location on the device.
Name	The display name for the desktop shortcut.
Delete Temporary Files	Delete the files when the deployment is complete.
ITNinja	Deployment tips from ITNinja. These tips are available only if you share usage data. See Configure data sharing preferences.