Jamf Pro - Tips and Tricks

Jamf Pro has a number of tricks to help in the learning process as well as troubleshoot deployment issues. Some are client side tricks and others are JSS side.

Client Side Tips

• Can't find a machine in your site?
  • If a computer was enrolled in the wrong site, contact euc-help@mit.edu with the serial number and the correct site.
  • You can also manually re-enroll by going to casper1.mit.edu/enroll. See Jamf Pro - enrolling devices without DEP for more info on manual enrollment.
• To ensure inventory is up to date in the JSS, run "sudo jamf recon" from terminal.
  • This will do an inventory scan and send it to the JSS immediately. That way you can be sure the machine you are working on has up to date information in the JSS.
• To run policies that are set to "Recurring Check-in" in the JSS, run "sudo jamf policy" from terminal.
  • Those policies will then apply immediately. There is no way to force a policy "push" from the server, so this is your best bet.
• Want to track a policy as it applies?
  • Open Console and browse to /var/log/jamf.log.
• If you want to test software deployments without waiting for policies, do not use a trigger.
  • Instead use Self Service. Self Service applies immediately, you do not even have to log out of Self Service. Just click the "home" icon at the top of Self Service and you will see any new policies.

JSS Tips

• Want to change all of your computer names?
  • This can be done directly from Jamf Pro without physically visiting machines.
  • Click on each individual machine you want to change the name of.
  • On the general tab click edit. Change the computer name as desired. Click save. Note that this step only changes the name in Jamf, not on the actual machine.
  • Go to Policies and then create a new policy. Give it a name, category, trigger, and a scope. 
  • Select Maintenance, then Configure. Check the box for "Reset Computer Names."
  • Click save. The next time the policy applies the computer name will be updated!
• You can see what policies are in scope and which policies have ran on an individual machine.
  • First, select the machine in the JSS.
  • To see what policies are in scope, click on the Management tab. You should already be in the policies tab on the left.  You can see what policies are set to run, as well as what triggers they are set to.
  • To see what policies have already applied, click on the History tab, the Policy Logs on the left. You will see what policies have already ran on the machine, and whether they succeeded or failed. Also note that on this tab you can "flush" a policy. This is a great way to have a policy run again on the machine that has already been applied.

Questions? Have a tip to add?

• Contact us at euc-help@mit.edu.