Software updates at logout

[mikethemac]

Hi,

I'm currently looking at installing OS updates at logout so as to make the update procedure as painless as possible for my users. I've got this working, along with displaying a splash screen informing the user of what is happening without any issues.

I've set the policy to reboot immediately if there is no user logged in and an update requires it. Obviously, this policy is triggered when the user logs out or as part of a reboot/shutdown procedure, my question is, if the user chooses shutdown and an update requires a reboot, the machine will not reboot as it is shutting down - Is this a safe enough way of doing things? The next time the user powers on the machine will serve as an effective 2nd half of a 'reboot', will it not? All ok or a terrible idea?

Many thanks!

[jarednichols]

Essentially a reboot is a shutdown and power up so I would think it's okay, though perhaps the only time it wouldn't work is for a firmware update. Test, test, test.

[stevewood]

Great idea, however I've had problems with using this method in the past. I had problems with the HP Driver update not allowing the restart to happen. The system would sit at the splash screen (jamfHelper app) over night until the user came in the next day. I'd have to then remote in and kill the jamfHelper so the machine would reboot.

I vaguely remember reading someone's post here that mentioned this was a bug in 10.6.x. I eventually turned off that policy and haven't enabled it since. I need to do more testing to figure out if it will work or not.

[mikethemac]

Great, just as I suspected. Good point about firmware updates... I'll definitely have a look into this.

Just seen your reply, Steve. Thanks for the heads up. I'll do some more testing on my guinea pig machine and see how it goes.

Cheers!

[ctangora]

I just went through and disabled this on all my workflows because of an article I read on Friday. If you're running Lion I don't know how it would effect it, but I'm still on SL, so until ML comes out so it was important for us.

https://jamfnation.jamfsoftware.com/article.html?id=183

[donmontalvo]

@ctangora Wow, not sure how I missed that article...pretty significant for us.

Anyone know if there is a JAMF article "feed"?

Don