jamf binary "install" verb gone??

[lisanelson2]

We are in the process of migrating from an on-premise JAMF instance to a cloud one. Not surprisingly, the cloud instance is running a slightly newer version of JAMF than we are (being a university, we try not to do upgrades except during the summer).

My problem is, using the JAMF binary from the cloud server, which reports itself as version 11.3.2, all the install-related verbs are just gone. When googling, I don't find anybody screaming about this, so I can only assume that what I'm seeing is not right. But when I do "jamf help", the list of verbs skips from "help" to "launchSelfService". Nothing even beginning with the letter I.

There don't appear to be a new set of verbs to replace the install functionality.

Especially weird: the uninstall verb is still there!

Anyone know what's going on? Is it just me? (Please say it's just me.)

Thanks,
Lisa.

[jamf-42]

my mind is not what it used to be, but was 'install' replaced with 'event' ? to trigger a policy? 

[lisanelson2]

I think that's probably not it. There isn't an "event" verb either, but even if there were, it wouldn't be the same thing. A policy may include things like package installations; internally, package installations always ran "jamf install" to do the installation under the covers.

So it's as if they simply removed their own ability to install packages!

Thanks,
Lisa.

[AJPinto]

I don't ever recall there being an "install" verb. what was the command you are attempting to use? Jamf makes frequent updates to the Jamf binary, which adds and removes verbs. If you are running a version of Jamf from summer 2023, there have been a lot of changes since then.

[lisanelson2]

Things like this:

jamf install -package Stage2.dmg -path /Volumes/imagecache/images/stage2complete -target /Volumes/Macintosh HD

Which is literally how, internally, JAMF has always installed DMG files.

We have used JAMF since it was Casper 9.x in 2013 and the install verb has always been there. If they made a lot of changes to the JAMF binary, any idea where they are documented? Because I can never find stuff like that.

Thanks,
Lisa.

[AJPinto]

Jamf can still install dmg's, you would wrap it in a policy and deploy like you would a package. It is possible to launch a .dmg and do the thing with a script deployed by a policy. The command would look like sudo jamf policy -event {custom event} or sudo jamf policy -id {policy ID}.

Jamf documents their changes in the release documentation for the new versions of Jamf. There are not any changes being made to the binary with 11.4, but the link where the stuff would be is below. Checking this doc for each version of doc can get out of hand, but this is where it would be.

Change Management - Jamf Pro Documentation 11.4.0 | Jamf

My experience is with Jamf Pro, so take that with a grain of salt if you use Jamf School as there are slight differences. 

[lisanelson2]

Found it, they really have dropped it, it got dropped in 10.44. At least in looking at the list of deprecations and removals, it tells me that what they expect me to do is use the "installer" command that's built into MacOS. Unfortunate, but at least I can work with it. I just will stop getting a lot of things for free.

Thanks,
Lisa.

[mschlosser]

I understand; what you are trying to do, that is pretty old school. respect. I'd recommend that you change your software install methods, to use jamf policies for app installs and configuration profiles; if oyu must direct right to pref domains or PPPC controls.  A cloud distribution point can be used for package / dmg storage or a local smb share if the packages are large.

After these methods have been setup, you'll find that they are much faster then imaging, mainly because you gave access to the parallelism of the network, and the i/o of the Mac storage across the fleet. As you have discovered imaging can still 'sorta' be accomplished through various hoops, however the juice ain't worth the squeeze in my opinion. monolithic imaging is dead. 

look into the above methods and you almost never have to interact with the jamf binary. just a few thoughts

[Bol]

Yes, I remember stumbling on this as well, a couple of policies / scripts to update..
Likely it bootstrapped the default installer but logged additionally with jamf api, I believe the cached option went as well.

jamf help -all -hidden 

install Installs a package
installAllCached Installs all packages that are cached