Add Multiple Categories at Once

@tech1man re-purposing a script I used for updating lease data, you could use the API to create these. Place the categories into a CSV file that is saved with UNIX LF, then pass the API user/pass and file name to the script.

#!/bin/bash

# Name: createCategories.sh
# Date: 7 June 2016
# Author: Steve Wood (swood@integer.com) 
# Purpose: used to read in a list of categories from a CSV file and create them in the JSS
# 
# **** The CSV file needs to be saved as a UNIX file with LF, not CR ****
# Version: 1.0
#
# A good portion of this script is re-purposed from the script posted in the following JAMF Nation article:
#
#  https://jamfnation.jamfsoftware.com/discussion.html?id=13118#respond
#
# Usage: createCategories.sh apiuser apipass path-to-csv-file

# Variables
args=("$@")
jssAPIUsername="${args[0]}"
jssAPIPassword="${args[1]}"
jssAddress="https://your.jss.com:8443"  # <-- make sure to put your JSS address here
file="${args[2]}"

#Verify we can read the file
data=`cat $file`
if [[ "$data" == "" ]]; then
    echo "Unable to read the file path specified"
    echo "Ensure there are no spaces and that the path is correct"
    exit 1
fi

#Find how many categories to import
catqty=`awk -F, 'END {printf "%s
", NR}' $file`
echo "Category Qty = " $catqty
#Set a counter for the loop
counter="0"

duplicates=[]

#Loop through the CSV and submit data to the API
while [ $counter -lt $catqty ]
do
    counter=$[$counter+1]
    line=`echo "$data" | head -n $counter | tail -n 1`
    category=`echo "$line" | awk -F , '{print $1}'`

    echo "Attempting to add category named $category"

    apiData="<category><name>$category</name><priority>5</priority></category>" # <-- you can edit priority to what you want
    output=`curl -sS -k -i -u ${jssAPIUsername}:${jssAPIPassword} -X POST -H "Content-Type: text/xml" -d "<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>$apiData" ${jssAddress}/JSSResource/categories/id/0`

    echo $output
    #Error Checking
    error=""
    error=`echo $output | grep "Conflict"`
    if [[ $error != "" ]]; then
        duplicates+=($category)
    fi

done

echo "The following categories could not be created:"
printf -- '%s
' "${duplicates[@]}"

exit 0

I tested really quickly on my JSS and it worked to create 6 categories in seconds. You can find this on my GitHub account here:

Create Categories

As always, test this in dev before implementing in production.