Hey, is anybody managing a network with Mac clients being backed up by Retrospect? Are you using the public/private key function for client login? How much of the client install were you able to automate with Casper? There doesn't seem to be a lot of info on jamfnation about Retrospect, so either lots of people are doing it with no problems or nobody is using Retrospect, haha.
Answer
Managing Retrospect with Casper
+11Best answer by perrycj
So we are just starting to use it. We are using the public/private data key for authentication. The retrospect backend is windows based, I believe Windows 2012 Server.
For packaging, the public key is inserted in the correct place (according to their documentation) and is then captured with composer. You deploy like normal after that, whether it's through Self Service or through a policy. If you disable System Preference panes, you'll need to customize them because Retrospect has a 3rd party pane at the bottom of System Preferences which needs to be enabled for user interaction.
Once you package and deploy your Retrospect package, you don't have to do much else through Casper. Most of the customization of Retrospect is done through Retrospect's backend on the server.
+14So we are just starting to use it. We are using the public/private data key for authentication. The retrospect backend is windows based, I believe Windows 2012 Server.
For packaging, the public key is inserted in the correct place (according to their documentation) and is then captured with composer. You deploy like normal after that, whether it's through Self Service or through a policy. If you disable System Preference panes, you'll need to customize them because Retrospect has a 3rd party pane at the bottom of System Preferences which needs to be enabled for user interaction.
Once you package and deploy your Retrospect package, you don't have to do much else through Casper. Most of the customization of Retrospect is done through Retrospect's backend on the server.
+11That's exactly what I was looking for, thanks. I assumed it would be something like that but couldn't verify it because we don't have it in house yet.
+3@perrycj We're moving to Retrospect (v.14) for client backups and trying to figure out how to deploy via Casper and I'm having a heck of a time trying to figure out if your post is still relevant to the current version. We've generated the keys, but the Retrospect installer package doesn't give me much to work with when I put it in Composer. There are a preinstall and a postinstall script. But there doesn't seem to be any payload. Please advise if you have more details or any experience with this new version.
+14Hey @chrisjuno unfortunately I haven't really used it since a little after I posted the above 2 years ago. it was at a former job. I can tell you that their documentation had the correct place to put the keys but beyond that, I'm afraid I can't be much more help.
+3Thanks for your response @perrycj. After more thought (and a Duh moment) I figured out how to do it. For others looking for this solution or something similar, this is what I did. I generated the Keypair from Retrospect server and copied the public key file to the public_key folder as instructed in the Retrospect documentation. Then I created a package in Composer that drops the Retrospect Client installer and public_key folder into the client /Shared folder. I then created a script that installs the Retrospect installer from the client /Shared folder. As long as the public_key folder is in the same location as the Retrospect Client Installer it will use the key instead of asking for user interaction to create a password on install. The script is below.
#!/bin/sh
/usr/sbin/installer -pkg /Users/Shared/Retrospect 14/Retrospect Client Installer.pkg -target /Enter your E-mail address. We'll send you an e-mail with instructions to reset your password.