Edit mobileconfig files from exportOSXConfigurationProfile.html

[hkim]

How can I manually edit these files? I need to add some options that aren't available through the GUI in JSS and reimport them into JSS with these new keys on some configs.

When I download these files, I have to clean them up in TextEdit because it's got some non UTF characters inside some of the XML. Is there corruption in my JSS or is this par for the course?

[mm2270]

Believe those are editable from the old iPhone Configuration Utility or the newer Apple Configurator.app. I'd probably use Configurator if possible since I'm guessing its more up to date and aware of any new features added. iPCU is a bit old from what I can tell.

[hkim]

The version of IPCU complains of extra keys it doesn't know how to handle, Apple Configuration just quits on me trying to read the file (I suspect because of the extraneous characters and unknown keys the mobile config uses that I'm also trying to add other unknown keys).

TextMate won't even open it because of the weird characters, I can get TextEdit to open it and it's a semi jumbled mess that I can extract usable XML from though and use that.

[nkalister]

mobileconfig files should be straight xml, editable in any plain text editor. at least, that's how they look when generated by the IPCU or profile manager on OS X server. I don't create or push my profiles using my JSS--I use OS X server's profile manager to generate them, then install them on my clients using pkg's with profiles commands in the post flight script. So, I created a simple energy saver profile on my JSS and then exported it using the export URL, and yeah . . . . I see the garbled characters you're talking about. I've never seen those present in a mobileconfig that's generated using apple's tools. However, the exported profile installs and applies settings as expected, so it doesn't appear to affect the client's ability to read the xml from the file . . . . I think I'll keep using profile manager instead, though. :)

[mm2270]

Ah, I didn't read your post carefully enough - my bad. iPCU was only designed for mobile (read: iOS) profiles, so it won't work with any OS X profiles. I haven't looked at Configurator recently, so I don't know if the crash you're seeing is because of the bad characters or just that it also cannot read OS X config profiles. For some reason i thought it did though.
If that turns out to be the case, then its a good question as to what you can edit them in. I'm guessing you'd need to import them into OS X Server's Profile Manager, maybe?

As for text editors, have you tried TextWrangler to see it possibly handles them a little better?

Edit: Just wanted to confirm that I just created a simple OS X Config Profile in the JSS, downloaded it and opened it in TextWrangler and I'm seeing the same garbled text junk in the first 3 or so lines and about the last 15 lines in the file. Interesting. This is on JSS 8.71. Maybe JAMF needs to take a look at that?

[nkalister]

textwrangler does open the exported profiles even with the garbled characters.

[mscottblake]

I think what you're looking for is Workgroup Manager; although it's been a while and I may be thinking of the wrong app.

[hkim]

No Workgroup Manager is for MCX, not Profiles.