Casper Suite Extension Attribute?

[ericjboyd]

I would like to build an Extension Attribute to detect the version of Casper Remote, Recon, Composer, etc and create a policy to push out the current version to the various call center macs that have these apps installed.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to look up the versions?

[mm2270 · Accepted solution]

Why would you need an Extension Attribute for any of the above? They're standard apps that should show up in a Mac's Application inventory, including their version numbers, unless they happen to be installed to an odd location that isn't part of the paths searched by Casper.

[ericjboyd]

Yes, I guess I could use Application Title tied in with Application Version to form the smart group to target the policy to.

Thanks!

[mm2270]

Just so that your original question isn't entirely wasted, if you run across any apps or plug-ins that, for whatever reason don't get captured in Casper Suite, and you need to build an EA for that, you can usually use defaults in a script to pull the version #, provided the developer added that in.
Using Casper Admin.app just as an example-

defaults read "/Applications/Casper Suite/Casper Admin.app/Contents/Info" CFBundleShortVersionString

Just change the path in between the quotes to the app and its Info.plist file as noted above. Some apps contain the version # in CFBundleVersion instead of CFBundleShortVersionString, but usually the latter is safe.

hope that helps.

[rderewianko]

I repackage it, and auto push it out right after the server upgrade... and have it once per a machine, I also have it tied to a ADMIN Ad group which allows the it staff to login to selfservice and grab the latest if they need it on a different machine.

[rderewianko]

<edit> double post</edit>

[donmontalvo]

If you're trying to ensure correct versions connect, Casper Admin forces a version check and doesn't let you connect to JSS unless you have the right version installed. Casper Remote and Casper Imaging don't seem to care...would be nice if ALL tools force version check and disallow use unless version matches. And I seem to remember a Feature Request for tools to be updated automagically (like the binary does now) but not sure if that ever got implemented (I suppose since the tools can reside anywhere...).

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[Chris_Hafner]

Ditto everything above: However, I create a licensed software template so that I can institute complete version control. While casper admin will not run unless it's up to date, Recon, Composer and the others will.