FlexNet Inventory Agent deployment on MacOS

[TBertolet]

My company is looking to deploy the FlexNet inventory agent to Mac OS devices using the JAMF. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to deploy the agent using JAMF?

[AamerSharif]

Hi There,

It is similar to any other package installation on Mac OSX. where ManageSoft-15.0.0.pkg  is the package name for version 2020 R1, replace with the appropriate version in use but the important thing is getting the configuration to enable configuration through mgssetup.sh

mgssetup.sh (sitting next to the package) contains the bootstrap location (MGSFT_BOOTSTRAP_DOWNLOAD) to configure beacon which beacon server it should be talking to after installation to enable download and upload communication with Flexera inventory beacon.

Install command line will like

installer -verbose -pkg ManageSoft-15.0.0.pkg -target /

Uninstall command will be like 

/opt/managesoft/bin/uninstall-managesoft.command -force

Hope this will help to configure deployment in JAMF

Aamer

[TBertolet]

Thank you for your response. We are running macOS Catalina 10.15 on our devices. I've found two conflicting pieces of information that maybe you know the answer to.

1. Since we are running Catalina, do we need to install the Flexera Agent 15.0? I've seen some documents that state older versions of the client have issues with Catalina.

2. The "Gathering Inventory" installation guide (page 71) references the creation of a file named "mgsft_rollout_response" file but make no mention of "mgssetup.sh". I've deployed the Windows agent and I know that you need to use "mgssetup.ini" on Windows devices. The zip dmg file for the agent includes a copy of the "mgssetup.sh" file so it is confusing to me on which file needs to be used and copied to the device prior to the install of the FlexNet Inventory Agent. Do you know if we have to use the "mgsft_rollout_response"  or "mgssetup.sh" file?

[AamerSharif]

1) Inventory agent for macOS versions older than 2019 R2 are 32 bit, macOS Catalina 10.15 does not support 32 bit application. Please check the feature release notes for more details.
https://docs.flexera.com/FlexNetManagerSuite2019R2/EN/features/index.html#FeatureList/2019R2/RN_feat_MacAgent64BitOnly.html
2) mgsft_rollout_response is generated by mgssetup.sh. I would say use mgsft_rollout_response.
Hope this will help.

[sanbeam]

@AamerSharif / dear community, is the path for mgsft_rollout_response the same in Mac is it is in AIX and Linux - /var/tmp/mgsft_rollout_response?

There is also a file named managesoft-configure that gives a dialogue box where we've given the upload and download paths and saw the device reporting. Which of these methods, rollout response file or the managesoft-configure file, is a better approach?

[kclausen]

@sanbeam - Yes, OS X is just a variation of Linux, so the rules are the same.  Both the .PKG file and the configured mgsft_rollout_response  file must be placed in /var/tmp before launching the install package.

The managesoft-configure application that you reference is used to repair an agent after it is installed when the Beacon URLs in the configured response file were incorrect and need to be modified so that the already installed agent can download the Policy File from a beacon and complete the installation.

[sanbeam]

Thank you, @kclausen