Manual MCX Migration from 8.71 to 9.x

[franton]

Hi All,

I've been testing Casper 9 for some time while we run on our stable 8.71 release. However the one thing i've not been able to solve is manual MCX settings as I have three that I need to port over. I've four settings for our homesync prefs and one big one for our password self service account. They need to come over because every other method of deploying these settings i've tried have failed for me.

So how have you all moved your manual array MCX over? I'm looking at trying to build these things as importable manifests but that's not working too well.

Here's an example of what i'm trying to move over. This is part of the com.apple.homeSync prefs in the excludedItems key:

<array> <dict> <key>comparison</key> <string>fullPath</string> <key>value</key> <string>~/.SymAVQSFile</string> </dict> <dict> <key>comparison</key> <string>fullPath</string> <key>value</key> <string>~/Documents/Microsoft User Data</string> </dict> <dict> <key>comparison</key> <string>fullPath</string> <key>value</key> <string>~/Library</string> </dict> <dict> <key>comparison</key> <string>fullPath</string> <key>value</key> <string>~/NAVMac800QSFile</string> </dict> </array>

[bentoms]

Any luck with this?

Seems that this is the only issue for me, & the MCX i'm missing are the Safari Managed Plugin (which may be user training) & system preference access (config profiles now?).

[franton]

Sadly none. It's why I put in a feature request for proper custom MCX support a while back.

[franton]

https://jamfnation.jamfsoftware.com/featureRequest.html?id=1642

[bentoms]

Dang. Already upvoted.

[mm2270]

Hehe. Don'tcha wish you could up vote some items more than once? :)

This issue could be a problem for us as well when we look to go to version 9 next year. We have a small handful of manual MCX that likely won't make it over. I hope there's a valid fix or workaround before then. Either that or we'll need to look at some alternative ways to set those up. Ugh :(

[JPDyson]

You can technically do this with a "Custom" payload in a Configuration Profile. Create a valid plist file with the array you intend to manage, and upload it into a Custom payload. A major draw-back is that these don't seem to be editable in place; we have been testing managing Safari Managed Plugin Policy this way, and we have to re-import a new plist each time we want to add a new site/plugin.

[JPDyson]

@bentoms I'm not sure user training is adequate for our mutual case; the managed plugin policy is fiddly and technical (unless you've got a bunch of users that are a bit sharper than the average user). It's better we manage it, even if just for user experience's sake.

[mm2270]

@JPDyson - Thanks. You mean with something like Configuration Manager / OS X Server? Or are you referring to something else? I haven't had enough hands on time with Casper Suite 9.x yet so I'd like to try it out as soon as we get our dev environment back up on the latest 9 release.

[franton]

Maybe I'm just a little punchy after a one day of ITIL training and finding what we've been taught doesn't seem to match up to the example exam questions in ANY way but ...

There's no bloody way in hell that i'm plunging into Casper 9 without the ability to do array MCX settings. It will simply break too much, such as our locked down generic accounts.

[franton]

I tried the config profile method ... and it broke the machine I was testing it on. Yeah, i'm doing some fairly nasty stuff with parental controls that I only got working through MCX. The config profiles to do it had strange side effects.

[bentoms]

@JPDyson, do those settings get refreshed/reset @ every login?

I'm interested in our self hosted sites only. (SharePoint, Portfolio...etc..)