Hi Jared,
We actually have several web pages used to access resources in the JSS for various reasons with a read only account in the mysql database.
The three things we really hit are:
* In our general access labs we have scripts for startup, login, and logout that toggle information in a separate database to indicate if someone is logged in (1) or not (0) and then have a diagram of the lab and have open seat status so you can see from a website if a seat is open in any of our labs and go there. The part that ties in to the JSS is the heartbeat, when the system last reported in. If it hasn’t reported in after so many hours the system then appears offline/broken
* Similar to this when our nightly maintenance in labs runs it also hits a database and updates when that maintenance last ran successfully. So for our internal support people they go to a website and view status. This page basically looks into the JSS tables to see which machines or group of machines are assigned to that specific policy then lists them out in order. From there it looks at the systems JSS ID and compares it to the maintenance log table of the separate database as well as that heartbeat again in the
jSS itself, and also see if a system is logged into or not, all in one page. This way each morning they check to see what ran properly, what didn’t, and if they can remote in without bothering someone if they wanted to run maintenance quickly.
* The last part is to help people find where software is loaded. A page is available to search software titles based on the information I have in the page notes and description fields, if there is info there. So they type in what they want and it will return the configurations that have it. You can also do it with just selecting a configuration (a lab location really) and see what’s assigned to it at imaging.
So that’s what we have in terms of web pages accessing the JSS with read only. So it’s possible, just need to understand the tables and where stuff is. That and it’s only as good as the data you keep. I need to actually go through and update all my package descriptions and notes since some of them aren’t showing up right now. =) We aren’t unique with this and we do it on our Windows side as well.
http://labs.uwec.edu/
Check the Open Seats and Find Mac Software links. B50 – Brewer 50 is a good example Mac lab.
Craig E
