Renaming Macbook with count up script

[dsMCH]

Hi JAMF Nation 

We're starting to use JAMF in our business and so far, everything is working smooth. 

We have a special namingconvention for our Windows notebooks and now also want to mirror this naming convention to our Macbooks - so they would start with MBSMB**** (4-numbers) 

Is there a way to create a script that automatically sets the computername & local host name to that naming convention that also automatically counts upwards? So starting from MBSMB0001 and automatically counting upwards. Otherwise we'd have to manually type in the name for every Macbook. 

If this is not possible: what would be the easiest script to give that specific naming convention? 

I'm not very familiar with scripts at all, so I thought I'd ask you guys for help. :-) 

Thanks a lot. 

[AJPinto]

Its possible, but not easy. The Script would need to be aware of how many devices came before the Mac it was run on. A script using JAMF API could do this as it could check to see what the inventory number is for the device among many other things a local script would not be aware of. My suggestion is keep things stupid simple, unless you have a need to name things this way just use something unique like the serial number.

This is the script I use, it sets the device name to the Serial Number. you can adjust the hardware profiler stuff in lines 26/27 to set the name to whatever you want.

#!/usr/bin/env bash
#*=============================================================================
#* Script Name: 
#* Created: 
#* Author: 
#*=============================================================================
#* Purpose: Requests input and renames computer based on Naming Conventions
#*=============================================================================



#*=============================================================================
#* GLOBAL VARIABLES
#*=============================================================================
DIV1='echo ####################################################################'
DIV2='echo --------------------------------------------------------------------'
DIV3='echo ....................................................................'
ActiveUser=`/bin/ls -l /dev/console | /usr/bin/awk '{ print $3 }' | tr "[a-z]" "[A-Z]"`
ActiveUserRealName=`dscl . -read /Users/$ActiveUser | grep RealName: | cut -c11-`
    if [[ -z $ActiveUserRealName ]]; then
        ActiveUserRealName=`dscl . -read /Users/$ActiveUser | awk '/^RealName:/,/^RecordName:/' | sed -n 2p | cut -c 2-`
    fi
computerName=$(scutil --get ComputerName)
hostName=$(scutil --get HostName)
localHost=$(scutil --get LocalHostName)
serialNumber=$(system_profiler SPHardwareDataType | awk '/Serial/ {print $4}')
serialNumberII=$(system_profiler SPHardwareDataType | awk '/Serial/ {print $4}' | tr -d '"')
#*=============================================================================
#* FUNCTIONS
#*=============================================================================
userInfo () {
    echo; $DIV1
    echo "User Information:"
    if [[ "$ActiveUserRealName" == "$ActiveUser" ]]; then
        echo  "$ActiveUserRealName (Local Admin)"
    else 
        echo "$ActiveUserRealName ($ActiveUser)"
    fi
    $DIV1
}
#*=============================================================================
#* SCRIPT BODY
#*=============================================================================
userInfo

## Check & Update Computer Name
if [ "$computerName" == "$serialNumber" ]
then
	echo "Computer name matches serial number, $serialNumber"
else
	echo "Current Computer Name: $computerName"
	echo "Computer Name does not meet standards"
	echo "Changing Computer Name to match Serial Number"
	scutil --set ComputerName "$serialNumber"	
fi; $DIV2

## Check & Update Host Name
if [ "$hostName" == "$serialNumber" ]
then
	echo "Host Name matches serial number, $serialNumber"
else
	echo "Current Host Name: $hostName"
	echo "Host Name does not meet standards"
	echo "Changing Host Name to match Serial Number"
	scutil --set HostName "$serialNumber"
	
fi; $DIV2


## Check & Update Local Host
if [ "$localHost" == "$serialNumber" ]
then
	echo "Local Host matches serial number, $serialNumber"
else
	echo "Current Local Host: $localHost"
	echo "Local Host does not meet standards"
	echo "Changing Local Host to match Serial Number"
	scutil --set LocalHostName "$serialNumber"
	
fi; $DIV2


## Final Check
computerNameII=$(scutil --get ComputerName)
hostNameII=$(scutil --get HostName)
localHostII=$(scutil --get LocalHostName)

echo ""
echo "Serial number: $serialNumber"
echo "Computer Name: $computerNameII"
echo "Host Name: $hostNameII"
echo "Local Host: $localHostII"
if [[ "$computerNameII" == "$serialNumber" ]] && [[ "$hostNameII" == "$serialNumber" ]] && [[ "$localHostII" == "$serialNumber" ]] 
then 
	echo "Computer Name satisfies naming standards"
	$DIV1; exit 0
else
	echo "Computer does not meet naming standards"
	echo "More troubleshooting will be necessary."
    $DIV1; exit 1
fi 

## Perform final Recon to update computer name on Jamf
sudo jamf recon
#*=============================================================================
#* END OF SCRIPT
#*=============================================================================

[anickless]

with Jamf Pro in the Prestage you can set the naming convention to a csv list (comma seperated value) of all the numbers you want. 

We did that for about 280 laptops a couple of years ago, one Caveat is that when you power them on its who ever contacts Jamf first gets the number so we experienced say ten laptops turned on in sequential order, you would think that the first one would be 001, second 002, and so forth. However, this is not always the case we had experiences where the first few would be the same but the fifth one would beat out the fourth in getting a name. Now for you it may not matter depending on deployment, for us we just had to check the name before we applied asset tag labels and assign it to a user. 

Your other option is to know the serial numbers and then after the fact use MUTT to mass update the serial numbers to actual names.