File Share Distribution Point: If backslash doesn't work for specifying a Windows server local account, try the semicolon!

arekdreyer
Contributor

I was having trouble with policies that install a package, because the client could not mount the distribution point. The distribution point is hosted on a Windows 2012 R2 server, just a folder shared via SMB. Created two local users: "jamfreadonly" and "jamfreadwrite". In Computer Management > File Share Distribution Points > File Sharing > Username field, I specified somthing like WINSERVER02jamfreadonly.

Casper Admin mounted the DP fine. So did Casper Imaging. And in Finder, Go > Connect to Server worked with the username in the form of WINSERVER02jamfreadonly.

In Terminal, when I ran the "sudo jamf policy -verbose", the errors included::

Result of the mount attempt: The URL to mount cannot be nil.
Result code of mount attempt: 10

I tried using the jamfreadwrite credentials just as a test, and didn't get different results.

In Computer Management > File Share Distribution Points > File Sharing > Username I tried removing the "WINSERVER02" from the username, and just used the short name of the account, but that didn't work, but at least "sudo jamf policy -verbose" to install a package resulted in a different error:

Result of mount attempt: Authentication error
Result code of mount attempt: 80

However, when I specified the username with a semicolon instead of a backslash, it worked fine, like this:

WINSERVER02;jamfreadonly

If you run into a similar problem, and search for that error string, I hope you find article, and find it to be useful. If so, please let me know if you've experienced it as well.

3 REPLIES 3

arekdreyer
Contributor

In another environment, we found that having the domain name in BOTH the "Workgroup or Domain" field AND in the username before the backslash or semicolon doesn't work.

So either place the domain name in one place or the other, but not both.

sychow
New Contributor

Had the same issue, this worked for me! Thanks for sharing this solution.

Winterhalter
New Contributor III

This got me around an issue I'd been having that I couldn't wrap my head around. Thank you!

(FYI the Jamf Admin app does not mount the share the same way the Jamf client does)