Managing CS6

[tkimpton]

Ok so the time had come again to deal with the rigmarole of the latest cs6 products plus hunting down a sifting through hundreds of Adobe blog posts to find what you need. Sorry Jody but the blog thing isn't working anymore and I think you should follow JAMFs Nations
model of collaboration.

I have currently packaged up a simple cs6 standard and deploying using the dmg method and install from dmg script.

Things I have worked out so far:

1. Composer packaging is a no go. Don't bother you will waste your time, be pulling your hair out!

2. Trying to add an AAMEE CS6 pkg to Casper Admin and selecting the option to be installed at imaging time fails even if you DP is an afp share. Just to let you know that so you don't waste hours.

3. Pushing out through ARD doesn't work even if no one is logged in!

4. I got deployment working by creating a smart group scoping receipts including a dummy receipt for cs6 and conditions that didn't have mycs6.dmg cached.

5. To the installpkgfromdmg.sh I just added a command at the beginning jamf recon. What I found was that every time the policy was running say every5 trigger, the dmg was downloading again and overwriting itself whilst it was in the middle of installing! This works now because in the smart group I am scoping doesn't have cached the mycs6.dmg and as soon as recon has finished it falls out of the group :)

6. With a policy set up scoping dummy receipt etc, it makes it easier to push out via other tools etc. I don't push out the CS6 pkg, instread I just push out the appropriate dummy receipt via Casper Remote followed by a recon and the machine will fit into the smart group for cs6 :)

7. AUSST 2.0 is supposedly also to be used for cs6 updates but adobe haven't updated any tech notes so I don't even know how to do that yet!

8. Adobe Codename Remote Update Manager is in BETA And is designed to update CS6 (Acrobat, flash player etc excluded). This will be interesting to keep the suite up to date by running a script through a policy. First things first though need AUSST sorted!

[alplatt]

Hi,

Thanks for the great info on this.

I'm struggling with the same issues when installing.

How did you create the dummy receipt? I can't find one that installs with CS in the ~/Library/Receipts or /Library/Receipts folders.

I'm assuming it's stored somewhere else.

Al

[donmontalvo]

Sorry Jody but the blog thing isn't working anymore and I think you should follow JAMFs Nations model of collaboration.

I agree...I've only been able to find the XDA/RUM forums here:

http://forums.adobe.com/community/labs/aameetools

Maybe suggest an AAMEE forum on the blog pages?

Don

[talkingmoose]

Have you read the documentation listed at the end of this blog post as well as the post itself? *

AAMEE 3.0 for CS6 available now! Removes puffer fishes!

I know the first issue about creating a .dmg package should follow along this line of thinking from the blog post:

You do an install on one base system. Login in with an Adobe ID and serialize it. Looks fine. Then you clone it to another system. Won’t work. There is now a relationship between the machine and the licensing in CS6.

All Adobe products re-packaged with AAMEE must be installed to the boot volume. You're not going to be able to install them at imaging time. Be sure you're selecting that option when adding to Casper Admin.

I'm not sure what deployment issues you're having and what your dummy receipt is helping you accomplish. Can you explain this more?

I haven't done extensive testing. I have been able to repackage Design Standard CS6 using AAMEE with these settings:

1. Under Options: Unchecked the option to install fonts under Illustrator, InDesign and Photoshop.
2. Under Configuration: Select: End User License Agreement
3. Under Configuration: Select: Adobe Product Improvement Program
4. Under Configuration: Select: Disable all Adobe Air installers, including Adobe Help Manager
5. Under Configuration: Choose: Ignore conflicts and continue installations
6. Under Configuration: Choose: Adobe Update Manager is disabled
7. Under Configuration: Choose: Deploy to default application directory

I threw the .pkg installer that it created into Casper Admin and used Casper Remote to deploy to a machine that was sitting at the login window.

* For me, Jody's blog is fine so long as it links to the documentation I need. My only issue is that he's a witty guy and works really hard to be witty in his posts. That wit really gets in the way sometimes of me trying to understand his message. Sometimes less is a lot more.

[tkimpton]

Hi Will

Did I read it..YES. Only difference is I am installing the fonts because i want that and doesnt say in any Adobe or JAMF white papers to not install fonts because of problems. I also haven't tried with Casper Remote etc because I am on training now and didn't have time yet.

Copying the AAMEE created pkg to Casper Admin and set Copy at Imaging time doesn't work for me. JAMF log says the installation failed Contact the manufacturer for assistance.

I checked the AAMEE pkg again, again and some more. I think even if Copying at Imaging time did work I wouldn't use it. It seems there is some random delay switch that makes the machine sit there for 10 minutes. I say this because I have a Bamboo tablet driver set to Copy at imaging time and it takes an age. If I point and click manual install it is 10 seconds.

The dummy receipt is purely to set one of the criteria i need for a smart group. The policy is then scoped to the smart group. That's it. So in other words rather that trying to push out the cs6 pkg and crossing my fingers and wondering if it works or not, I just push out the dummy receipt followed by an update inventory and let the policy take care of itself.

Similarly also in Casper Admin I just drag and drop the relevant dummy receipt in to the imaging workflow and let the policy do the rest after the build :)

I created a dummy receipt via terminal

touch /Library/Receipts/DummyAdobeCS6Std.pkg

I then dragged the receipts folder in to Composer and deleted other receipts.

For me I enjoy the wit but not so that its OTT and I get annoyed because I am just trying to find answers and not some random comments about COD.

With a policy based install of the dmg it is just working for me and thats all that matters which ever way works and like Don said soups done... :)

[Lincoln]

I've been working on this too. My package is named CS6_Install.

I'm doing a similar thing to you too Tim in that I had noticed that the policy was appearing to be triggered two or three times for each machine. Rather than create a dummy receipt (great idea by the way) I checked the receipts and found that under "Packages Cached by the Casper Suite" there was this "CS6_Install.dmg.shadow" after the policy had run and deleted the cached package.

I created a smart group for machines which did not have this receipt nor a receipt for "CS6_Install.pkg" in "Package Receipts Installed by the Casper Suite". Membership of this group triggers the policy to cache "CS6_Install.dmg" and run installpkgfromdmg.sh.

I modified the installpkgfromdmg.sh to recon the machine before doing anything else which causes the machine to drop out of the group and so not trigger the policy again.

At this stage it appears that it works on freshly imaged machines but not on machines which have had CS5.5 or a failed installation of CS6 on them. I am still testing this though. When it errors out here is the policy log I am seeing:

/usr/sbin/jamf is version 8.52
Executing Policy Install Adobe CS6 AAME...
Mounting smb://blah.blah.blah.blah/CasperShare to /Volumes/CasperShare...
Caching package...
Running Script installCS6PKGfromDMG.sh...
Script Exit Code:0
Script Result: Retrieving Inventory Preferences from https://mdm.mycompany.com.au:8443//...
Locating Hard Drive Information...
Locating Hardware Information (Mac OS X 10.7.4)...
Locating Applications...
Locating Plugins...
Executing Unix Applications...
Locating Receipts...
Gathering Application Usage Information...
Finding Extension Attributes...
Submitting data to https://mdm.mycompany.com.au:8443//...
<computer_id>71</computer_id>
Variable "dmgName" value is set to: CS6_Install.dmg
Mounting the DMG CS6_Install.dmg...
DMG mounted successfully as volume /Volumes/CS6_Install on device /dev/disk1.
Installing Package CS6_Install.pkg from mount path /Volumes/CS6_Install...
Copying CS6_Install.pkg...
Installing CS6_Install.pkg...
Installation failed. The installer reported: installer: Package name is Adobe Setup
installer: Installing at base path /
installer: The install failed (The Installer encountered an error that caused the installation to fail. Contact the software manufacturer for assistance.)
Package successfully installed.
Unmounting disk /dev/disk1...
"disk1" unmounted.
"disk1" ejected.
Unmounting file server...
Running Recon...
Gathering Application Usage Information...
Finding Extension Attributes...
Blessing i386 OS X System on /...
Creating Reboot Script...

and here is the relevant part from one which is successful...

Variable "dmgName" value is set to: CS6_Install.dmg
Mounting the DMG CS6_Install.dmg...
DMG mounted successfully as volume /Volumes/CS6_Install on device /dev/disk2.
Installing Package CS6_Install.pkg from mount path /Volumes/CS6_Install...
Copying CS6_Install.pkg...
Installing CS6_Install.pkg...
Successfully installed CS6_Install.pkg.
Package successfully installed.
Unmounting disk /dev/disk2...
"disk2" unmounted.
"disk2" ejected.

So I continue to test but I also feel like maybe I'm nearly there with this. I still have a bit of testing to do before I am confident to push it out to my labs but at least there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Regards

Lincoln

[tkimpton]

Thanks Lincoln

This is great stuff!

[Lincoln]

Further to my comments above. I have now had several machines successfully install CS6 alongside CS5.5. I was not trying to do this but it is possible. I am also still having failures for no apparent reason...

Lincoln

[solomonacquah]

CS6 package finding

Created AAMEE package and wrapped in DMG.
Copied DMG to Casper Admin

Created Policy using the recommended installPKGfromDMG.sh script way

Package will cache fine and when I checked location of /Library/Application Support/JAMF/Waiting Room sure enough the package was in there, although because of the installpkgfromDMG.sh script the package would get deleted which I didn’t notice until much later.

When I checked the casper Policy log it stated the below.

/usr/sbin/jamf is version 8.52
Executing Policy Adobe CS6 Master Collection...
[STEP 1 of 4]
Mounting smb://x.x.x.x/CasperShare1 to /Volumes/CasperShare1...
[STEP 2 of 4]
Caching package...
[STEP 3 of 4]
Running Script installPKGfromDMG_modified.sh...
Script Exit Code:0
Script Result: Variable "dmgName" value is set to: CS6_Install.dmg
Mounting the DMG CS6_Install.dmg...
hdiutil: mount failed - not recognized
DMG mounted successfully as volume on device .
Installing Package from mount path ...

There is a problem with your syntax.

Error: No package was specified

Type "jamf help" for more information

There was an error installing the package. Exit Code: 1
Unmounting file server...
[STEP 4 of 4]
Running Recon...
Gathering Application Usage Information...
Finding Extension Attributes...

As you can see the DMG is not nounting, very strange. I removed the parts in the dmgtopkg script to not unmount the Volume and not to remove the package.

Come to find out the package was making it to the Waiting Room, but would not mount. So I attempted to mount the volume myself via terminal using hdiutil mount – noverify CS6_Install.DMG. Well I received an error message stating: hdutil: mount failed – not recognized. It appeared that either my package is corrupted or something else is wrong. I copied over a DMG that I created from Composer to the same directory, “waiting Room” and attempted to mount that using hdiutil..that worked perfectly. Something is wrong with my package.

I figured it could be either permissions or location of the cached package, so I copied the package from waiting room to my desktop and then attempted hdiutil again and it failed. Possibly when Casper is caching the package it corrupts somehow, which is strange because when I try and mount the DMG from Finder everything is fine, but command line barfs.

Finally to fix the problem I re-created the pkg with AMMEE then before I uploaded to casper tested command line hdiutil and it was successful. For now I will leave commented out the last few lines of the sh script. I guess I can conclude that Casper uploading did not ralph on my DMG, but strange how command line would not run hdiutil.

Also to note I did the same thing for the AAMEE uninstaller package and that worked fine as well.

[donmontalvo]

From Twitter:

“@Adobe_ITToolkit: New Adobe Enterprise Deployment Forum is live!
http://t.co/SJF5Eh9i”

Or if you prefer the long URL...

http://forums.adobe.com/community/download_install_setup/creative_suite_enterprise_deployment

[taugust04]

I'm having all sorts of weird issues and failures when I attempt to install packages built with AAMEE 3.0 using Casper. The packages themselves seem to be okay, since I can double-click on them and install without issue. Adding them to a policy seems to result in a failed install. I've packaged and launched the installers in a couple of different ways, but I'm not having much luck.

Where do I start with troubleshooting these issues? I'm only getting the generic "The Installer encountered an error that caused the installation to fail. Contact the software manufacturer for assistance." in the system log, which isn't much help.

Any guidance is appreciated!

~Ted

[donmontalvo]

SMB?

https://jamfnation.jamfsoftware.com/article.html?id=161

Overview Adobe CS5/5.5 PKGs that were created using the Adobe Application Manager Enterprise Edition (AAMEE) cannot be deployed if your master distribution point is an SMB share.

[Lincoln]

I Have spent quite a bit of time on this over the last couple of weeks. I'm using the pkg wrapped in dmg cached and then installed using the modified installPKGfromDMG script as outlined above.

I have added an extra smart group into the mix and a dummy receipt because I was still encountering errors during installation which seemed to relate to policies being triggered again. To help alleviate this I now have two smart groups:

Needs CS6 Cached:

* Criteria:
1 Does not have receipt in 'Packages Installed by Casper' for CS6_Install.pkg (The name of the pkg I created with AAMEE)
AND
2 Does not have receipt in 'Packages Cached By Casper' for CS6_Install.dmg
AND
3 Does not have receipt in 'Packages Installed by Casper' for DummyCS6Receipt

This group triggers a policy which caches the DMG and updates inventory.

The second smart group is 'Needs CS6 Installed.'
Criteria:

1 Does not have receipt in 'Packages Installed by Casper' for CS6_Install.pkg AND
2 Has receipt in 'Packages Cached By Casper' for CS6_Install.dmg
AND
3 Does not have receipt in 'Packages Installed by Casper' for DummyCS6Receipt

This group triggers a policy which installs the dummy receipt, and then runs the script which updates inventory and installs the package from DMG.

So far this seems to be working though it is still early days for this trial.

Lincoln

[taugust04]

Thanks for your replies Don and Lincoln,

The JAMF Casper Server and it's corresponding CasperShare is running on an XServe with Mac OS X 10.6.8 installed, so I thankfully don't have to worry about SMB issues.

I initially saw some of the issues with policies being triggered twice on the computers. I followed JAMF's Managing Adobe CS6 PDF step-by-step, and didn't have much success getting the packages installed.

I tried a different strategy, and rather than directly upload the .PKG bundles built by AAMEE into Casper Admin, I instead build a flat package in Composer, where, the the AAMEE package is installed into /tmp, then a postinstall script runs, and launches the install of the package using the installer command. I've had more success using this method, though I'm still testing and figuring out how reliable this method actually is.

Where I'm still running into some issues is where I want to install more than one AAMEE generated package. For example, I have 3 packages, for Design and Web Premium, AfterEffects, and Audition. It seems that the reliability of the second and third packages being installed is rather low after Design and Web Premium gets installed. I'm not sure if there are conflicting items in the other two installers, but, they all do install using the manual double-click GUI method.

Is there a location that the Adobe Application Manager process that gets called by the AAMEE installers logs errors and failures? I'd like to see what the packages are getting stuck on in case I need to repackage.

Thanks,

~Ted

[kagibson]

Ted,
AAMEE creates logs in /User/Library/Logs . PDApp.log will contain the install progress and errors encountered. If you have any queries about the log then let me know and I can try and analyze it.

Cheers
Karl

[solomonacquah]

Ted,

Even if you are using an AFP share don't bother dumping the pkg file directly in casper admin it won't work.

My success has come from using installpkgfromdmg shell script.

I see you have a similiar issue like I did. My installation was failing when the installpkgfromDMG script was attempting to mount the DMG via command line.

when I would double click my DMG packages they mount fine, but the way I really figured out whether the DMG was 100% legit or not was by running the hdiutil command on the package directly, that was throwing hdutil: mount failed – not recognized. When I tried other packages it worked fine.

So what I did was ran the hdiutil immediately after I had wrapped my AAMMEE package in a DMG and if it was succesfull then I dropped in Casper Admin, so far no issues...well see.

Sol

[taugust04]

Thanks everyone. I'll check my logs and report back any interesting findings.

~Ted

[talkingmoose]

I haven't done extensive testing. I have been able to repackage Design Standard CS6 using AAMEE with these settings: PDRqrt3mDvTJPK8opB9R I threw the .pkg installer that it created into Casper Admin and used Casper Remote to deploy to a machine that was sitting at the login window.

Just tested Netbooting and installing a Lion image with my CS6 AAMEE package installing at reboot. No problems. I see the entire suite correctly installed. This was over AFP.

[taugust04]

Just wanted to report back - it looks like the failures on my test boxes may have been due to a conflicting process (i.e. web browser) being open. I've deployed several configurations using Casper Imaging of the packages built with AAMEE 3.0 and they seem to have installed correctly. That's the most important install method at this point, so I'm glad it's working. I may need to create a reinstallation script that fires off and closes apps such as Safari and Firefox before deploying to machines out there in service. Thanks for all your help, this community is great.

~Ted