Unable to set a managed preference to an empty string

bkvines
New Contributor III

With JSSv8.7 and an OS X 10.8.3 client, I'm trying to use Managed Preferences to set up Mail.app.

I'm using all eleven of the key/value pairs available in the com.apple.mail template. One of the preference keys is DeliveryAuthenticationScheme. The Name field for this key reads, "Authentication scheme for outgoing mail server. Set an empty string to use a password." The manifest for this key shows it will accept four possible values: - An empty string, - CRAM-MD5, - GSSAPI, or - NTLM.

When initially creating this managed preference, it is created with an empty string for its value, which according to its name will cause Mail to require a password to send mail. That is the behavior I want from Mail, so thee empty string is the value I want. However, with an empty string as its value, the managed preference isn't sent to the client machine. The other ten Mail preferences are sent.

Changing the value to of the string to any other value will cause the DeliveryAuthenticationScheme preference to be sent to the client machine along with the other ten preferences.

When I attempt to change the value back to an empty string and save the managed preference, my change is discarded and the previous value remains in the managed preference. In other words, I can set the Value field of the DeliveryAuthenticationScheme preference to CRAM-MD5, and save the change. The new value is then displayed for this setting. If I then delete the contents of the Value field of the DeliveryAuthenticationScheme preference and save the change, the value will not change from CRAM-MD5.

Having described that, I have three questions: - How can I get the JSS to accept an empty string as a valid value for a managed preference? - How can I get the JSS to send an empty string as a value for a managed preference? - Has anyone run into this before?

Thanks!

1 REPLY 1

bkvines
New Contributor III

Followup:

JAMF Support is looking into whether this is a known issue.

Meanwhile, I came up with a workaround.

If you need to send an empty string as a value for a managed preference: - Change the Key's type from String to Manual Entry - Change the Key's value to <string></string> - Save