Autopkgr + JSSImporter: Smart groups get updated regardless of app update

[khenley]

Hello, I'm using Autopkgr with the JSSImporter integration. Sometime in the past the JSSImporter changed it's behavior. It used to change a policy's smart group's definition ONLY if there was an update. No update, meant no changes are made on the JSS. This way I would simply delete the "and member of Testing" from the smart group's criteria once I was I done testing. Now however, every time autopkgr runs recipes, and regardless if there is an update, it touches all the "Appname-smart" smart-groups and adds the "and member of Testing" back to them. I prefer the "don't touch it unless there is an update" method.

Has anyone else noticed, or been annoyed by this? Am I missing something? I tried a fresh install and results are the same. This "update it always" seems to be the norm now. I haven't dug into the source code of the JSS Importer yet.

[elliotjordan]

Hi @khenley,

There hasn't been a JSSImporter update since September 2015, so it's unlikely that the behavior changed on JSSImporter's side. But I wouldn't manually modify objects (policies, groups, or extension attributes) created by JSSImporter, because it's likely your modifications will be overwritten.

The method I use and recommend is to create two sets of overrides:

• AppName-testing.jss.recipe — Creates a Self Service policy that allows people in the Testing group to install AppName if they don't have the latest version. This is the default jss-recipes behavior, so this override doesn't actually override anything; I just create it for sanity of nomenclature.
• AppName-selfservice.jss.recipe — Creates a Self Service policy that allows anybody to install AppName if they don't have the latest version. For this to work, a PolicyTemplate-selfservice.xml file must also exist in the RecipeOverrides folder, and this file will be identical to the default policy template except for the fact that you'll set the scope to <all_computers>true</all_computers>.

I write a step by step guide for this method in Section 6c of Auto Update Magic. You can see an example of the PolicyTemplate-selfservice.xml file here.

Hope that helps a little!