Weird Policy issue

[Randydid]

Hi JN,

Trying here first before I open a support ticket. Basically, I am looking to find out if this is a known issue or undocumented feature.

I have a policy in Self Service that installs a bunch of tools related to being a site Admin. It consists of the JAMF Suite, MacUserGenerator, Autopkgr, etc. One of my site Admins still has El Cap Macs in their labs and needs to package stuff for it. On her test fresh El Cap test machine, the policy fails with the following. On Sierra and High Sierra, the policy runs and everything is successful. I have tried it on fresh installs of both here at my desk on different machines and can reproduce the issue. The policy tries to mount the share a second time on the El Cap Mac for some reason. Any ideas?

[STEP 1 of 11]
Executing Policy WSM JAMF PRO & TOOLS
[STEP 2 of 11]
Mounting IT1xxxxxx
Verifying package integrity...
Installing AutoCasperNBI.dmg...
Closing package...
[STEP 3 of 11]
Mounting IT1xxxxxxx
Verifying package integrity...
Installing AutoDMG.dmg...
Error: The package "AutoDMG.dmg" could not be mounted (no mountable file systems).
Retrying using distribution point IT1xxxxxx..
Verifying package integrity...
Installing AutoDMG.dmg...
Error: The package "AutoDMG.dmg" could not be mounted (no mountable file systems).

AND, Here is the log from a High Sierra machine:

[STEP 1 of 10]
Executing Policy WSM JAMF PRO & TOOLS
[STEP 2 of 10]
Mounting IT1xxxxx
Verifying package integrity...
Installing AutoCasperNBI.dmg...
Closing package...
[STEP 3 of 10]
Verifying package integrity...
Installing AutoDMG.dmg...
Closing package...

TIA,

/randy

[sbrennan]

High Sierra uses the AFPS format and El Capitan doesn't.

I bet that is your problem.

[Randydid]

@sbrennan Good point, but let me double check on a fresh Sierra install.

Also, my Distribution points are on Mac Minis running afp on a mix of El Cap and Sierra.

/randy

[Randydid]

I just spun up a Sierra Mac and tried the policy and it ran without any issue. So, it seems to be isolated to El Cap....

I will see if she can do her packaging on Sierra Macs instead. It would be nice to have an explanation why though.

/randy

[sbrennan]

I assume you created the package on a machine that is running High Sierra, if you recreate the package on an El Capitan machine it will run fine on any El Capitan machine. The AFPS format is much different than previous formats.

Shaun

[sbrennan]

This might help.

AFPS

[DBrowning · Accepted solution]

I ran into a similar issue with creating .dmg files in composer on a High Sierra machine. If you create them as a .pkg on HS it will work across all previous versions of OS.

I'm going to guess that the Sierra test machine you spun up was running 10.12.6 which has support for reading/mounting APFS where 10.11.x does not have that support.

[Randydid]

@ddcdennisb This seems most plausible and I will re-create them as pkg and test again. I will report my results.

APFS is an interesting thing and has far reaching ramifications.

/randy

[Randydid]

@ddcdennisb That was it! I re-packaged as .pkg in Composer and all apps are installing on El Cap!

Thanks!

/randy