How to create an appmanifest plist (pre-stage deployment)

[JHerrin]

After a little back and forth with JAMF support I was able to get the following instruction set and application for creating manifest files for JAMF Pre-stage Deployments. As always be careful with links, I went back and forth on whether or not to post this link, since it is not the clearest way to determine what you are really downloading. Although if you want to go the safe route there is enough info when you click the dropbox link (before you download) to help you get a link directly from JAMF.

Here is the workflow for creating a Custom Manifest for use with Packages in the Prestage :

1. Download the below .zip file, unzip it, and move the appmanifest binary to usr/local/bin on a macOS computer : https://www.dropbox.com/l/scl/AACf7rKHA2U4TykFdyRZO7hL8nDhQx4zp7w
2. Download your desired package eg. Jamf Connect Login, NoMAD Login AD
3. Run the following command:

appmanifest -url https://your_url/path/to/yourpackage.pkg /sytem_path/to/yourpackage.pkg > /system_path/to/yourpackage_manifest.plist
Upload the package as normal using Jamf Admin. Or, copy the file to the web server through any method and then add the package record manually in Jamf Pro

1. Upload the generated .plist as the manifest file in the corresponding package record in Jamf Pro
2. You may need to add more information to this .plist per Apple’s documentation, especially if this is an end-user application they will be launching via LaunchPad. However in my testing this worked as-is for Jamf Connect Login
3. In your prestage, select this package within the Enrollment Packages payload and select ‘None’ for the distribution point

4. Enroll a Mac and observe how it reaches out to your web server and installs your package.

5. Manually creating this manifest file is the best way to avoid hitting a couple of known issues, and has been approved by engineering teams.

[dhausman]

Hey Just wanted to revisit this. The Dropbox link is not working.  I found this site helpful.  

TLDR:

Download from https://github.com/micromdm/tools/archive/v1.zip and unzip

cd tools-1/appmanifest/
brew install go (assumes you have homebrew  installed)
go env -w GO111MODULE=off
go get github.com/groob/plist
go build appmanifest.go
sudo chmod 755 appmanifest
mv appmanifest /usr/local/bin