I have sat through hours of training, hours of webex and still this piece of junk fails to work.
For us it will be better to walk around to each machine and manually install software and keep ARD for everything else.
The client thinks I’m an idiot for recommending it and I feel like an idiot for recommending it.
Time to cut our losses I think.
First post...you know, there's a lot of experienced admins here that might be able to help you sort through whatever's not working for you.
To answer your question, though:
sudo jamf removeFramework
will remove the client-side binary from any machine you've installed it on.
As for the server, you can delete the /Library/JSS/ folder, which will remove the web files. Then, you can go into mysql & drop the 'jamfsoftware' table.
Honestly, though - Casper has its occasional issues, but this piece of junk has served us incredibly well over the past 4 years, and I would guess that many of my collegues here would concur. Feel free to post about your problems here - you'll get the benefit of many years of hands-on, end user experiences.
Yes first post.
Posting here because Tech Support is getting me nowhere and I guess I also need to vent.
All I know is I’ve persuaded the client to spend $$$$ on the software, sat through 3 days of training which the client had to pay me for and we have now have about 18hours of web ex with the support guys (again billable time for the client) and I’ve got nada (technical term).
We would be better of spending the same amount of money for me to walk around to each machine and install stuff manually and tick each machine off as its done.
This doesn’t even run Software Update Server, ARD at least does that painlessly.
Add to that blundering around what five applications and a web interface to get anything done and its just been a PITA for us.
What specific things are you having problems with? Management? Software deployment?
If software deployment, which software? Some software, in particular certain 3rd party applications can be tricky. But somebody here has probably already deployed it, and chances are, ran into the same problem as you are seeing.
Whats your environment? Such as File share types, user account types (network or local), deployment methods, etc?
Theres a lot of things that can come into play with software deployment. Existing files, running process, etc.
All I wanted was basically an improved version of ARD to help with the management and software deployment on a small (25-30 machine) network of identical machines.
Simple stuff like pushing out software updates in the background, tracking inventory, etc.
The list to date.
SUS script works randomly (for some not others).
Office 2011 update policies work randomly.
Flash update policies work randomly
Acrobat update policies work randomly.
Acrobat policy that did work for some no longer works for others when duplicated and new pkg file put in place of previous one.
Have to spend way too much time in Console and Terminal fixing this stuff.
Tracking machine inventories fail randomly.
Haven’t touched self service or mobiles because I only want to risk breaking stuff on desktops at the moment under my control.
I have absolutely no confidence in any policy I push out because it will work on the first four test machines and then fail on the next identical production one.
JSS web page times out far too quickly, can’t configure it to just stay connected.
Moving between packages / features requires use of multiple applications / utilities / web page - why not a one stop shop.
Packages need to be rebuilt every time Office, Adobe, etc. bring out new software (and of course they remain flakey).
Why can’t I have a policy that just says check the Adobe web site once a week and download any update to Reader that is posted there? I.e. one policy that runs many times instead of creating a new policy EVERY time.
The list goes on ...
That's a lot of stuff to cover.
Have you checked the logs for your policies to see why they're failing? Policies can be a bit tricky to get a handle on, because it's easy to shoot yourself in the foot if you construct them wrong. I use Policies on a daily basis, however, and have no problems with the mechanism itself. If you go to the Policy & click Show Plan, it gives a synopsis of the policy. Could you maybe copy one or two here, for examples of what you're doing?
Adobe stuff is famous for being difficult - but it's not so much a fault of Casper as it is of Adobe, and the unique way they build their installers. There are many workarounds here for various Adobe issues.
The thing about putting a new pkg. in place of an old one - do you mean uploading a different pkg with the same name? Not sure, but I can see how that might fail. Did you try editing the policy, and actually removing the old pkg & choosing the new one?
I'm curious about what you're fixing in the Terminal?
Re: the JSS web page timeout - I hear you there, it was a pain for me spending all day in the JSS and having to log in all the time. (It's a security feature.) My solution is a plugin for Firefox called Session Keeper - you select a web page (in this case the JSS page), and set a keep-alive interval, and it will ping the page and keep it open. I have mine set to 9 minutes, which is enough to subvert the 10-minute logout. :)
I understand your feelings about the applications, they seem a bit confusing (I have to train our staff on them here). I break it down like this, in order of usage:
Casper Remote: client interaction, this is the main day-to-day app for managing things.
Casper Admin: repository maintenance & image configuration, i.e. server interaction. A lot of this functionality is in the web app, and they are working towards adding more (as I understand).
Composer: package building. The built-in manifests for known applications usually work very well; that said, I most often use either the "New and Modified" method, or a drag & drop approach, i.e. put an app in /Applications, then drag that to Composer to make the deployment file. The latter is great if you have custom preference settings - this is one thing that I push daily with Policies to keep certain application settings from getting out of whack.
Recon: I almost never use this, other than creating a new QuickAdd.pkg when upgrading. QuickAdd does everything I need. Of course, if I needed to scan a LAN then I would go to Recon, but that's also more of a one-off thing.
Casper Imaging: lives on your NetBoot image. Only time I touch it is updating to a new version.
So really, Remote & Admin are the heavily-used apps. The others are fairly occasional, once you get up & running.
Responses underlined after each of your comments:
Have you checked the logs for your policies to see why they're failing? Policies can be a bit tricky to get a handle on, because it's easy to shoot yourself in the foot if you construct them wrong. I use Policies on a daily basis, however, and have no problems with the mechanism itself. If you go to the Policy & click Show Plan, it gives a synopsis of the policy. Could you maybe copy one or two here, for examples of what you're doing?
Well most of the WEB EX sessions with the support people consist of just that. I see little point of burdening “free support” here when I need to be getting value for money somewhere in this mess
Adobe stuff is famous for being difficult - but it's not so much a fault of Casper as it is of Adobe, and the unique way they build their installers. There are many workarounds here for various Adobe issues.
Well again the WEB EX guys don’t mention that, ...
The thing about putting a new pkg. in place of an old one - do you mean uploading a different pkg with the same name? Not sure, but I can see how that might fail. Did you try editing the policy, and actually removing the old pkg & choosing the new one?
I mean duplicate a policy and rename. Go throught the bazillion steps in Admin to up load the new pkg file with a new name. Then use JSS to edit the duplicate policy to delete the old pkg file and replace it with the new one. I had hoped that duplicating and amending working policies was the least labour intensive option, but of course that assumes that a policy actually consistently works and can be used as a baseline.
I'm curious about what you're fixing in the Terminal?
The other big time suck in the WEB EXs, deleting frameworks, doing command line verbose installs to find out where / why a policy fails. Of course there is no standard so say the Office 2011-1436 policy works on 10 machines but fails on another 15. Same policy, imaged machines, go figure.
Re: the JSS web page timeout - I hear you there, it was a pain for me spending all day in the JSS and having to log in all the time. (It's a security feature.) My solution is a plugin for Firefox called Session Keeper - you select a web page (in this case the JSS page), and set a keep-alive interval, and it will ping the page and keep it open. I have mine set to 9 minutes, which is enough to subvert the 10-minute logout. :)
Well I paid for the software, let me work out the security policy.
Margaret,
As Chris said there is a lot to cover in your post.
I'd advise posting here separate threads with some of the policy errors your seeing.
I know of no software that automagically will download the latest vendor pkg & then automagically deploys it. So you do need to go through some of the policy re-writing you mentioned.
For me I,
This works as long as you follow the vendors pkg logic.
Things to check;
Post here we're all here to help.
I started using the Casper Suite around 6 years ago & only had used ARD & WGM when started.
The people here have helped me immensely.
I took my last role on the proviso we would get Casper.
I now manage 200 macs across 10 offices, across 3 continents & split amongst 14 brands.
No way could I manage the macs as well as I do without Casper.
Well most of the WEB EX sessions with the support people consist of just that. I see little point of burdening “free support” here when I need to be getting value for money somewhere in this mess
Well, the point is that there are a lot of people here who have probably faced & solved the problems you have. I'm surprised they didn't suggest coming here, I've heard the recommendation often. Part of what you're paying for is this forum.
Well again the WEB EX guys don’t mention that, ...(about Adobe)
There are a lot of whitepapers about dealing with Adobe here; it's weird enough to have it's own special category (Adobe Installs) in the software. Again, there are a LOT of us who have had to deal with Adobe, who has not been real enterprise deployment-savvy until recently.
I mean duplicate a policy and rename. Go throught the bazillion steps in Admin to up load the new pkg file with a new name. Then use JSS to edit the duplicate policy to delete the old pkg file and replace it with the new one. I had hoped that duplicating and amending working policies was the least labour intensive option, but of course that assumes that a policy actually consistently works and can be used as a baseline.
I haven't duplicated a policy in awhile, so it's possible that there could be an issue with that. Do you have any better luck simply re-creating the policy?
The other big time suck in the WEB EXs, deleting frameworks, doing command line verbose installs to find out where / why a policy fails. Of course there is no standard so say the Office 2011-1436 policy works on 10 machines but fails on another 15. Same policy, imaged machines, go figure.
OK, that sounds like support's usual debugging procedures. So are they not turning up any answers? What happens when you push the package manually using Casper Remote? Does it still fail? Is it the same set of computers, by any chance?
Well I paid for the software, let me work out the security policy.
Agreed. Time for a feature request. :) Still, the plugin works for me so I don't worry about it too much.
Shearer, I'm not going to say I was completely happy with my jumpstart. Or some of the results immediately thereafter. But this was in no way JAMF's fault. It's a largely different way on handling management at least for us it was. If you are a traditional windows admin I would strongly recommend you spend some quality time with the casper admin manual. Are you new to OS X administration? If so take a look at:
What industry are you in? Do you have anyone nearby that have also implemented Casper Suite? Maybe with better results? Reach out to them for some best practices. Have you tried spinning up a new instance of jss? Did you experience the same results? Have you tried using composer's package manifests to capture your package?
JAMF support has always been on hand and helpful when presented with any problem. From my point of view you're frustrated and professionally embarrassed about a project you're undertaking and lashing out. Now may be the time when you bring in a casper certified admin and have him take over. I guarantee they'll be able to find and correct the problem. This is coming from a sys admin that supports upwards of 2000 OS X clients with the help of one other tech. We couldn't do it without Casper Suite.
Well for starters, I’m Mark (the guy who persuaded Margaret to buy the software and the Tech Support contact).
Its a legal firm.
I’ve been with Macs since 1986 (Mac OS System 4.2 - OS, Software and Files on a floppy) and am happy with products like Filewave, ARD, etc.
I’m not, and never will be, a Windows Admin :)
I’m trying to make the “system“ work in exchange for the huge amount of money we paid for this. (Margaret wants to bin it and start litigation to recover their funds).
To be honest with our small site it will be FAR easier to just use a combination of visiting every machine and ARD.
The amount of billable time I’ve spent /wasted on Casper would equate to say, three rounds of once a month manual visits and the users would be actually getting something for their money.
I’m rapidly getting to the point where I can not longer defend the purchase that I recommended.
If Casper's software distribution is not working out for your client, there's other tools that you can use for software distribution. One free open source tool is Munki:
http://code.google.com/p/munki/
There's an accompanying project that helps automate adding software to your Munki software repository:
AutoPKG - https://github.com/autopkg
You can use Munki in combination with Casper, with Munki handling software distribution and Casper handling your inventory and other tasks not related to software distribution.
If Munki's not your preference, there's another free software distribution tool called StarDeploy that may meet your needs:
StarDeploy - http://www.stardeploy.com
@Shearer-- Your experience is extremely atypical. This is the most mature and most successful commercial Mac OS systems management solution available, for what, a decade now. The sales and support staff are top notch. Something else is wrong in the environment; and with as much dissatisfaction as your expressing, it's going to be even more difficult for you to smooth out.
Given your relatively small environment, and soured outlook on Casper; you might very well be better served with OSX Server, DeployStudio, ARD and Munki.
Question: Did you actually get a JumpStart, or did you go to the CCA training class? Big difference between the two - a JumpStart should have gotten you up & running. CCA training should honestly not be done until you've used the system for awhile, otherwise it's just information overload.
To be honest, I'm also a bit curious why you'd recommend a system that you don't have any experience with? There's a definite learning curve here, it's not something you can just jump into without some planning, and some trial and error.
However, that's not really relevant to getting you up and running, assuming you are still interested in doing so.
If you are, then you should try to address one issue at a time, maybe in separate threads. Perhaps you could tell us what your most pressing task at-hand is: You have software that needs to be pushed right away? You want to get all the machines into inventory? You want to troubleshoot a policy that's not working?
Fire away. :)
I sat through three days of JumpStart, even when I specifically said we didn’t want to know about some of the features.
Yes the policies worked when we just sent them to “a” test machine. But fail when I send them to the real group.
I recommended it because of reviews / opinions like those expressed by “dpertschi” above and because we had issues with ARD when run from a server with two bound Ethernet connections (works fine off my MacBook Pro). I also had a happy experience with FileWave and was hoping to replicate that.
I’m not going to post every issue here in discrete threads (thanks anyway). That is what we paid the Support guys to provide as part of the purchase price and I intend to hold their feet to the fire until it works or they admit its broken and we get our money back.
Hi Mark,
Client Management is always a complex task. And it doesn't matter if you plan to manage 5, 50 or 500 Clients - you always need to go through some learning and initial Setup, Package-Creation and so on. Adobe is always a bit tricky.
We install the CasperSuite in many Customer-Situations and they are all running the way we want it. Of course there is no software without a bug, but so far everything worked in one way or the other. So - keeping this in mind I am convinced that your problems can be solved. But it will take some days/weeks to get everything to work.
First make sure your Network is ok, DNS, DHCP, Firewall, Ports for required Services are open (APNs), Certificates are installed, and so on. After thats all set - start creating packages, test imaging.
If you get stuck - ask JAMF Support or hire another Consultant to help setting up the initial Environment.
PS: My personal opinion - if you have less that 50 Devices to manage - just stick to manual / ARD. This Level of Client Management needs some more time for the Setup, which only makes sense and is in the End timesaving if you manage a larger number of Devices.
“If you get stuck - ask JAMF Support“
Well that’s what I’ve been doing and will continue to but we a burning lots of time and gaining little headway.
Sure.
Its always a bit time consuming in the beginning - but you will get it running, i am sure. :)
Very often the JAMF Support helps in situations where it is not a JAMF Issue - its an OS X or Application-Issue. Pretty often maybe a Network or some other issue. Not really their Problem - but they still help. Also because sometimes it is difficult to say where the Problem really is until it is solved.
Considering the small amount that you pay for that, i am always very grateful for their help.
So, last but not least (as chris.kemp wrote before): If we, the people here in jamfnation, can help you in any way .... please let us know.
Look, Mark - I think we all understand how frustrated you feel right now. The question now is do you want to find solutions or not?
It's fine to keep going to JAMF Support, but you're choosing to ignore a valuable resource right here. The simple fact is that WE are the ones who use this system day in and day out. Not to slight JAMF Support, but the guys on the phone probably don't have the same experiences that we do.
I started about 4 years ago managing 60 Macs, and that number has almost tripled. I doubt that JAMF had the resources to keep a stable of several hundred Macs sitting around in a testbed, just to train their Support guys on. And, my group is quite a bit smaller than several of the folks here, who have to manage thousands of clients. Frankly, if it didn't work then we wouldn't be here.
If you're not happy with the level of support you're getting, tell your Account Manager that you want to escalate past first-tier support. I'm sure that someone there can sort out whatever is wrong with your system & get you back on track. Then, maybe you'll feel more like availing yourself of the help being offered here.
@Shearer wrote:
...and I intend to hold their feet to the fire until it works or they admit its broken....
They won't, because it's not. :)
Having read through this thread, this looks like a training issue. There are currently 1,069 Casper Certified Administrators listed here. Have you thought about bringing in a local CCA who can help get Casper set up the way you guys want?
https://jamfnation.jamfsoftware.com/cca.html
Casper is a great product, and I'd hate to see someone under pressure brush it away, rather than dig in and learn it. There's no shame in asking for some hand holding, we all do it every so often, might even save your client some money.
Don
Yes... you seem to be having enough issues that I would strongly recommend double checking to make sure that the clients network is healthy. Secondly, relax. If you want to get rid of Casper great, you've got the info. If you want to fix it stay here in the forums. However, could you describe your setup/plan in detail? Obviously you need to get a baseline of things working first and then the various other issues can be addresses or else, will fall in line. You're having enough issues to suggest that there is either a network issue or possible issues with the fileshare... which admittedly still leaves plenty of adobe installer issue. In any event, once you can get pushing policies reliably everything else should be easily sorted out.
@shearer... like "too many cooks in the kitchen", I do not want to try to fix your situation when able Casper admins have added their thoughts already, however, I would like to assure you that I find your experience quite uncommon. Casper Suite is a good-to-excellent product that does make life better for Mac OS X sysadmins.
I do agree with chris.kemp's suggestion:
If you're not happy with the level of support you're getting, tell your Account Manager that you want to escalate past first-tier support. I'm sure that someone there can sort out whatever is wrong with your system & get you back on track. Then, maybe you'll feel more like availing yourself of the help being offered here.
As mentioned before I heavily recommend you open a new post for each issue you have, that way the whole JAMF Nation community can address each problem in bite-sized chunks, will be much easily to resolve that way.
I for one swear by this product.
Andrew
Not to be a jerk but it sounds like you are in over your head. Nothing to do with JAMF. I have seen this a lot lately. New former PC guy or just Mac savvy guys trying to get into the Client Management piece and finding out its not point and click like everything else on a Mac. Experience is key, a lot of us have been doing this for a long time. When I first started here I was lost, but I'd never call something a piece of junk especially when its managing over 4 billion dollars worth of assets and is outperforming our PC team (1 mac guy vs 45 PC guys and we have had an uptime that quadruples the PC guys.) Casper is SOLID.
I'd echo the local CCA suggestion, maybe see if one would allow you onsite?
I'm in London, I'm sure my boss would ok some knowledge sharing.
Another thing that might help is you listing why you purchased the Casper Suite. Maybe there are some things that are misaligned?
Well part of JumpStart was to pay the JAMF guy to check we had set everything up “correctly”.
We bought new operating systems for the server, added hard drives, SSL certificates all so he could say “yes its good to go”.
If the JAMF guy says then they can fix it when it doesn’t work.
As for talking to our Account Manager, I have - I’m not a total noob. ;)
I’m glad you are having a great time with it, we just seem to be the 1% that don’t.
Anyway I’ve spent days on this with JAMF and despite you offers I’m not going to spend days more here posting all the logs and other stuff I’ve already sent them.
Anyone interested in some cheap licenses. :)
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