Exclude Items from Inventory

[gskibum]

Is there a way of getting a JSS to exclude inventorying specified locations?

I have this JSS set to inventory /Users/

What I'm mostly running into is on 2-3 systems that I use for developing & testing policies I tend to have multiple versions of software titles.

For example on one of these systems I have 4 versions of Firefox that I am copying into test virtual machines. I keep my virtual machines and apps I use for testing in /Users/Shared, and as a result these things get inventoried, throwing off my extension attributes & smart groups on these machines.

Any suggestions or ideas?

[mm2270]

So, I can see how these additional applications might mess up Smart Groups, but how are they affecting your Extension Attributes? I would think there would be a way to adjust those to exclude the applications from the home directory paths.

[gskibum]

It would mess up some EAs like the one I'm working with now that determines whether Firefox personal or ESA is installed. I have both kinds of Firefox lurking in that folder so the EA didn't give accurate results.

I came up with this solution:

Since recon doesn't see invisible folders, I added the shared folder to the sidebar, then make the folder invisible. This way I have easy access to drop things into there without having to show all hidden items in the Finder.

I was then able to point Parallels to the now-invisible folder (use Command+Option+Period in the locate dialog to reveal the invisible folder).

In my template VM admin account I again added the invisible shared folder to the Finder Sidebar for easy access.

It's so far working well to use that invisible folder as my conduit between the host Mac and the VMs, and now the stuff in there isn't getting inventoried.

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I bet I can use an invisible folder to get the JSS to stop inventorying my Windows virtual machines. Unless someone has another suggestion to prevent those from VMs from getting inventoried, I'm going to forge ahead and try that.

Thank you.