Smart Groups with Wildcards and 9.7

[fredmin]

We have a number of smart groups with wildcards (%) in the criteria. I upgraded to 9.7 from 9.67 yesterday and the number of machines included in all of our smart groups using wildcards changed.

In working with Juston from JAMF tech support, we discovered that wildcard operators are no longer needed. He is trying to determine if this is a bug in 9.7 or a fundamental change.

Either way, I wanted to put this out here in the event that other run into this have a head's up on it.

Cheers!

[ChrisSVCarter]

Thanks for posting this, it's been driving me mad for hours! I started getting e-mail notifying me of Macs leaving their smart groups (by design) and I couldn't work out why - they still met the criterion for the groups.

This is a pretty important thing to note if, like us, anyone is basing key policies on smart group membership. For some reason not every machine left the smart group once their JAMF binary updated, but about 10-20% did. Removing the wildcards fixed this.

If during your investigation with JAMF support the functionality changes (e.g. if it is a bug which they then 'fix') I'd be grateful if you can let me know!

Cheers,

Chris

[Heideman]

I'm having the same issue.

[were_wulff]

@ChrisSVCarter @Heideman

This is intended behavior with 9.7+.

The like/is like/is not like/not like operators operate as wildcards, and make additional wildcards, such as %, unnecessary.

If you have additional questions or concerns, please get in touch with your Technical Account Manager by either giving us a call, sending an e-mail to support@jamfsoftware.com, or by using the My Support section of JAMF Nation.

Thanks!
Amanda Wulff
JAMF Software Support

[JPDyson]

Does removing the in-field wildcard also remove the ability to set "begins with" or "ends with" criteria? I can't see an obvious way to do this in my 9.7 environment.

[JPDyson]

Update: Things are working as designed, and "starts with" or "ends with" criteria are not a part of that design. Here's a relevant feature request, which is marked "Under Review".

https://jamfnation.jamfsoftware.com/featureRequest.html?id=482

[ChrisSVCarter]

Thanks for the update Amanda.

Chris

[jescala]

I would personally prefer RegEx pattern matching but that feature request was dismissed as "not planned."

https://jamfnation.jamfsoftware.com/featureRequest.html?id=339

[wdfraser]

Just ran into this after upgrading to 9.7. We use heavy pattern matching in application version numbers, as when version numbers are long like x.x.x.x doing a search for "like" 7 is utterly useless.

[Musgrove]

Ah... this is a little disappointing. I had been using the "_" (one character match wild card) character in a smart group pattern to identify machines that didn't conform to our naming conventions. If this feature is permanently withdrawn, then I really would appreciate JAMF reconsidering the RegEx matching feature request highlighted by jescala

[jaharmi]

I found this in the release notes for v9.73, but not earlier.

Does it affect wildcards used at the beginning of, end of, and/or within strings? The release notes indicate that it affects overall use of the % wildcard. If so, I’ve seen unexpected results in v9.73.

[msnowdon]

Im trying to create a smart group that has iPads that do not belong to any static groups and a smart group that has iPads belonging to more than 1 smart group. I cant seem to do this without wildcards.

All the criteria has is Mobile Device Group "member of" & "not member of". I need to know member of what and not a member of what since I dont know IF they are a member of a group.

I know I can do "not member of" and list everyone of my static groups but that is always changing and I would have to keep modifying the smart group. It also doesnt help with the ones that do belong to a group.

Thanks

Mark