Problems Getting JAMFHelper to block the screen during installs.

[GabeShack]

I am trying to get the jamfhelper to cover the screen as I run other policies, however it seems that the jamfhelper is working, but keeping the other policies from running until after I force quit jamfhelper.

Any ideas what I might be doing wrong?

Gabe Shackney
Princeton Public Schools

[mm2270 · Accepted solution]

That would depend on how the reboot is being initiated. If its something like shutdown -r now, then yes, it should I think kill the full screen jamfHelper window and reboot. There are other ways of doing more graceful reboots that might get hung up if they can't shut down the full screen block.

[mm2270]

You're likely not pushing jamfHelper to the background. Add a & at the end of the line where you call jamfHelper. This places the process in the background and allows the rest of the script to run.
At the end when installs are complete, you'll need to shut down jamfHelper. You can kill the process by getting it process ID for example and pass that to a kill -9 command.

[GabeShack]

@mm2270 Thanks for that!
Would a reboot command kill the process automatically? Or would I still have to have the kill command before the reboot?
Gabe Shackney
Princeton Public Schools

[mm2270 · Accepted solution]

That would depend on how the reboot is being initiated. If its something like shutdown -r now, then yes, it should I think kill the full screen jamfHelper window and reboot. There are other ways of doing more graceful reboots that might get hung up if they can't shut down the full screen block.

[GabeShack · Accepted solution]

@mm2270 So the command looks like this with the &?

/Library/Application Support/JAMF/bin/jamfHelper.app/Contents/MacOS/jamfHelper -windowType fs -description "PPS Computer Imaging is completing and may take 10-15 minutes. Please do not disturb." &

Thanks again. I always hate reinventing the wheel.

Gabe Shackney
Princeton Public Schools

[mm2270]

@gshackney Yeah, that should do it.