After wiping our Ipads we must manually set up the WiFi to connect with Jamf Pro

[twanke]

is there a way to do this automatically, we don´t want to set up Wifi manually on 100 Ipads after each wipe.

[ThijsX]

There are multiple ways to achieve this;

• Apple Configurator 2 -> Deploy Wi-Fi profile on the iPads.
• Jamf Pro -> Prestage enrollment / DEP -> Configuration Profile that contains your Wi-Fi settings -> scope to that iPads.

Depending on the reachability of your Jamf Pro server, and Wi-Fi settings the difficulty will vary.

[Graeme]

AFAIK there is no way to wipe an ipad and have it reboot with a wifi profile installed. We use an old charge and sync station and using configurator2 we "Prepare" the device. For DEP we just run through the process under the action menu (not a blueprint) and it adds the wifi profile after the boot.

To speed it up a little you could wipe from JAMF and use Configurator2 and a blueprint to add the Wi-Fi profile.

Regards
Graeme

[twanke]

this is bad, because we should do this 1-2 times a day for 50 Ipads in our school. They can be rent from students and when they give it back, we have to wipe them because of data protection law. The next students, who will rent the Ipads, need to have all apps immediatly. We had do tests here, that installing our apps on 50 Ipads lasts 2-3 hours (even with caching).

Is there really no option, to only wipe the data and not all the apps?

I wonder how this is done in bigger environments with hundreds of Ipads? I cannot be the only one with this problem.

[jedi1yoda1]

How many and how large are the apps you are installing on the devices? Keep in mind that if you're using a computer and USB hub with several devices connected you'll be sharing that bandwidth/bus over all of those devices.

You mention using a caching server, have you tried the internet sharing option enabled on a computer used to refresh the iPads? Having several devices connected to the same WiFi access point will slow them down as they all compete for the same bandwidth. Try enabling caching and the internet sharing option on a computer (connected via Ethernet for best results) with Configurator to do your refreshes. This will minimize traffic over your network.

Are you using Apple School Manager and Managed AppleIDs for your students? Have you setup Shared iPad settings for the devices so that students are logging into the iPads and getting their own unique data space? If your devices are being checked out during the day for shorter periods have students log in with their own account. Each individual user data space is protected behind their login information. You can then reserve lengthier refreshes to overnight (unless devices go home) to get the data space back in preparation for the next day. Check out the Education Deployment Guide https://help.apple.com/deployment/education/ for more info.

These are all suggestions and normal procedures for managing large education environments.

[ryan_ball]

Specifically for the question in your initial post, you can install configuration profiles BEFORE Setup Assistant with DEP enrolled iPads by going into your prestage enrollment, and checking the box next to "Install configuration profiles before Setup Assistant". Obviously you'd still need an internet connection to do this. You could setup a temporary open SSID and connect to that, then you'd get your wifi profile installed so you would not have to type in a password for wifi (user/pass with 802.1x) after you get the device setup.

[larry_barrett]

^ This is exactly how we do it (500+ ipads). We just need to select the WiFi network and the prestage takes care of the rest. During school we don't broadcast the WiFi name (which means you'd have to type it in) but during the summer we broadcast it for ease of use.

I think you're beating your head against the wall for nothing though. Setup shared iPads as SHARED iPads and all these "problems" go away. The constant wiping is heavy handed and unnecessary. If you have no log-ins, well, god help ya.

[mainelysteve]

@twanke If it's taking 2-3 hours for a handful of apps then either you're overtaxing the access point these iPads are hanging off or your caching may not be effective. Shared iPad as the others have said is a great option, but if you're taking 2-3 hours to provision a device then I'm not sure your infrastructure would provide a good home for it.

Another alternative is to purchase some usb 3 camera adapters and a similar amount of usb to ethernet adapters. That will offload those devices to ethernet and provide a quicker means of provisioning.

For reference we auto install about ~15 apps and in general an iPad is fully ready to roll in about 10-15 minutes. We also have a small pool of loaner iPads and do not wipe them everyday, but rather clear caches, history, settings, etc and every so often will wipe and setup again. I'm assuming you're referring to GPDR in your second post?

[bumbletech]

Have you looked into using the Shared iPad setup where students can log in and out of the iPads with a managed AppleID?

[atomczynski]

Another option might be Jamf Setup and Reset - this is on my “to do” list.

May I suggest few things?

How is your enrollment performance if enrolling a single iPad?

What are the specs of your access points? Are they configured properly?

Do you have a caching server (if you have multiple WAN connections, a txt record needs to be created) so all clients are aware.

Is traffic allowed to flow between your WiFi and the network the cache server is on?

Last summer I’ve enrolled approximately 900 devices, auto installing about 12GB of apps on each device.

One of my goals is to move to user initiated enrollment and install via Self Service vs auto install.

If you are using USB hubs, there are quality models which utilize thunderbolt connection between the computer and the hub, thus each client is using its on USB connection to the host.

Has anything changed in your environment? Was it always this slow?

Keep us posted.

[twanke]

okay, here we go:

we are relativley new to Jamf. Have it since 3 month. We have hosted the server inhouse as a vm. We got installation support through a system house here.

Our network ist diveded into vlans. We only have a 10 year old Imac with High Sierra for the Apple Configurator stuff. The Ipads are in our wlan vpn, the imac is connected in the wlan vpn and via lan (which is in another vpn).
I installed the caching on this imac (we don´t have the server, but i read that it could be done on normal os too).

Our Ipads have 32 GB Ram. We rent them randomly to students (we have a lot of students), so this jamf setup, i have read it is for max. 10 profiles, so I think, first too less Ram on the Ipads and too much every day students, who want to have an Ipad. All in all, the students use the same apps on the ipads. They don´t need to have special apps for each of them.

Because of this we don´t think that this profile thing is something for us.

We don´t use USB hubs. All the ipads are in a box where they get power.

all we want, is, when students give the ipads back (to the box) the next one should not see what the other one have saved on them.

Jamf was announced to us, that we don´t have much work with managing the Ipads. Just install over the air apps and that it is.

[mainelysteve]

@twanke The way your network is sub divided into vlans won't make much difference. What you really need to be concerned with infrastructure wise is your wireless network. If you're wiping and setting up 50 iPads in one space then those 50 iPads are working off one access point. That's like giving a pitcher of water to 50 of your friends who all want water at the same time but you only have a few cocktail sized straws.

You should look into Shared iPad. Each user that logs in is given their own "profile" and data from one doesn't touch the other. For a 32GB iPad you won't have much room for more than one or two logins but that should suffice. This would allow these rental iPads to stay at a constant state wouldn't need to be wiped and setup over and over again.

[atomczynski]

There are some concerns with shared iPad use config:
- There is a set storage size allocated per user and OS and applications (I don't have the numbers with me anymore) dependent on the storage size of the device, but I think 32GB is the base requirement.
- Shared iPad model rely on Wi-Fi connection. If there is no connection to network students can't sign in

Here are some ideas:
- If you have apps set to auto install, change it to be available in self service for user to install
- High Sierra has the ability to do content caching. For more information about what can be cached visit: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204675
- Connect the iPad to a Mac, launch the console app, start downloading apps on the iPad, and in the console app view the log of the device. Do you see messages related to content caching?
- Do you have have access to another Mac? You can do similar test from a Mac too

Is there any money in the budget to fix this?
- You might need to have some network changes made if traffic between the iPads and cache server is not working correctly
- You might need to setup another machine for caching or a USB hub and have the apps install via USB
- Connect iPad to wired network (lightning to ethernet via several adapters or third party dedicated cable) and test the speed of the workflow

I think there is some more testing to be done on your end and figure out what the bottleneck(s) you have now.
Make small investments as a proof of concept and then roll out.

[mainelysteve]

@atomczynski Yep, that's correct. 32GB is the minimum storage amount for Shared iPad to work. It will not work with 16GB iPads. I will concur that there are issues with it and if the environment isn't right for it you'll have a tough time with it.