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Problems with Policy

  • March 25, 2015
  • 7 replies
  • 32 views
C
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Hello all,

This is my first post on here, so I hope its relatively clear, apologies if it isn't ;-). So I am trying to deploy a installation package containing Adobe Design Standard CS6 using a Casper (Version 8.73) policy to over 50 mac computers all ranging from OSX 10.6.5 to 10.9.5. Here is what I've done so far;

I have created a deployment package using Adobe Application Manager Enterprise edition 6.2.112.0 and moved this into Casper Admin. I have also followed the Casper recommendations for the creation of the package itself.
From Casper Admin I created and configured a policy using the JSS browser > Management > Policies. I set the policy execution frequency to run "once per computer", the trigger as "any" and ran a test on these versions: 10.6.5 10.7.5, 10.8.5 and 10.9.5
The only one that actually installed was 10.8.5, the rest threw up errors. To be more specific, when I selected "view status" after the install and selected "view log" it had this exact message:

installer: The install failed (The Installer encountered an error that caused the installation to fail. Contact the software manufacturer for assistance.)
Installation failed. The installer reported: installer: Package name is Adobe CS6 Design Standard
installer: Installing at base path /
installer: The install failed (The Installer encountered an error that caused the installation to fail. Contact the software manufacturer for assistance.)

What makes this slightly confusing is that I have tried them all individually since and they have all installed. The only thing I changed on the policy was trigger to "startup" and execution frequency to "ongoing" and looking at the individual logs after one or two failed attempts it finally installs on each OSX version. Bearing in mind I am going to be rolling this out on more than 50 computers, it would be good to know and rectify whatever is making these installations fail. I have tried troubleshooting but to no avail. I'd really appreciate any help you could give.

Many thanks.

Chris

    7 replies

    bentoms
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    • bentoms
    • Hall of Fame
    • March 25, 2015

    @cgoldsmith Adobe PKGs are a PITA.

    You may want to cache, & then install from cached.

    Also, they need to install when someone is logged in. (this maybe why they failed at startup).

    L
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    • Look
    • Valued Contributor
    • March 25, 2015

    Agree with @bentoms Adobe PKGs simply don't work properly (or at least with Casper).
    Last time I gave up in frustration and packaged the pkg inside a DMG and then manually ran the PKG from a script after pushing it to the machine.

    davidacland
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    • davidacland
    • Valued Contributor
    • March 25, 2015

    Same from me, this is why a temporary Adobe user is created if you install as part of a casper imaging workflow.

    The Adobe software is particularly sensitive, so I would expect triggers like startup to fail.

    It might even be worth using a script to check if the user is logged in, if they are then triggering the actual Adobe install policy with 

    sudo jamf policy ...
    J
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    • johnnasset
    • Contributor
    • March 25, 2015

    I was always told to avoid the 'Any' trigger like the plague. Also, probably don't want to set the frequency to 'Ongoing' as it will continually install.

    For Adobe specifically, we've had better luck caching the disk image and installing from a script. Here is the link to JAMF's support article on Adobe CS:

    https://jamfnation.jamfsoftware.com/article.html?id=161

    The installPKGfromDMG script is what has made this successful for us:

    https://jamfnation.jamfsoftware.com/viewProduct.html?id=3&view=scripts

    C
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    • cgoldsmith
    • Author
    • New Contributor
    • March 26, 2015

    Thanks a lot for your help, very helpful.

    Best

    C
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    • cgoldsmith
    • Author
    • New Contributor
    • March 26, 2015

    Hi all,
    I have conducted another test. I ran a policy to cache CS6 and that seemed to work fine on the different versions of OSX, however when I ran a separate installer policy it threw up errors on each before finally working. Does this have something to do with the waiting time between cacheing the package and installing it, I'm guessing it would need some time to actually distribute it being that it it is 3.59GB? Thanks

    mm2270
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    • mm2270
    • Legendary Contributor
    • March 26, 2015

    If you use a caching policy, you need to make sure that the install from cached policy uses a Smart Group that is specifically looking for the cached package(s) as part of its criteria, otherwise, yes, you will get errors if its trying to install something that isn't cached on the Mac yet.

    Use the Cached Packages criteria in the Smart Group and use the "has" operator as shown below. Wait until your caching policy has run on at least one Mac and the Mac has submitted inventory (that should be part of the caching policy by default) Then it will show up under the ellipses button (∙∙∙) on the right after the field.

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