So this is more a question about people who actually download the secondary DMG that has extra utilities for the agent on it.
First, if you are a Mac house and do NOT use it I would be interested in knowing this.
If you are a Mac house and do download the DMG, I am interested in your usage of the tools on the DMG.
QnA was already discussed recently in a user forum we had here and if it would be better to always have it available in the BESAgent.app bundle and the overwhelming answer was yes. I would be interested in opinions on this.
AgentControlPanel.app allows you to stop the app, see its PID etc. Would people balk at only having a command line version of the functionality?
AgentUninstaller allows you to remove the BESAgent and its plists etc. Would people balk at only having a command line version of this as well?
I would like to have a the MAC uninstaller as a stand alone app I can direct my users to be able to download or provide to them a tool to remove BigFix in cases of departing students/employees running BigFix on their personal machines.
Your provide the windows version of BESRemove.exe there should be one for MAC too without having to download and extract it from a DMG. This actually can be too complicated for some of our users.
OK that is a good reason to have something simple though I would like to know if instructing someone to run a command line of something that’s is already on their machine wouldn’t suffice?
For example if it automatically was in the BESAgent app bundle and the instructions were:
To uninstall the Agent, run the Terminal App and type: sudo /Library/BESAgent/BESAgent.app/Contents/Uninstall/uninstall.script
That seems a lot simpler than locating, downloading and running a new program which you then have to remove that body as well.
The DMG requirement is due to the way OSX App Bundles are done. The file has to be in some compressed form to have the App Bundle intact and the only way that every OSX machine can open it is a DMG as not everyone can handle ZIPs etc. Otherwise we would have to have a PKG installer. DMG’s are the most common across the Mac-verse.
I have to factor in the lowest common denominator of users. Telling them to open a Terminal to perform the following steps is too much some of our users. We would probably end up writing our own app around that command line so people can just point and double click to run if a command line was the only choice…
The other scenario is it can be part of our desktop support teams tool kit of utilities in the case where an agent has gone rouge and not checking in anymore a site visit might be needed. To have a tool we can give desktop people to perform a clean uninstall and remove all the common MAC files, then perform a fresh install is helpful. There have been cases tech/users just delete the app and think all has been removed and not knowing there are files in other directories which has cause client behavior problems upon a re-install.
We have also had instances where personal computers used at Stanford had been sold/transferred to new owners without the systems being wipe and have random user X call up Stanford Help Desk ask “How do I get this BigFix thingy off my computer I just bought off eBay”
The main issue that has crept up is the changes in binary signing that Apple has switched to, making newer versions of OSX require a binary signed by OSX 10.10. The accessory binaries (QnA, AgentControlPanel, AgentRemover) are the most susceptible to this.
This of course is difficult because our binaries are 10.6 binaries because we are only using common functionality and nothing has yet forced us into a newer build system.
I’m trying to look at ways of limiting the exposure to the signing issues. Scripts of course would do that.
For the technician case, having the scripts already in the agent delivered (like we are planning on doing to QnA) will mean they have it available. For the end user I can see the differences in abilities making it difficult and this might make for a fun scenario.
QnaA: We install it on every Mac for the purpose of testing relevance when a problem occurs. It’s easier to have it when we need it, over waiting for it to install. I’m happy to have it relocated. I currently only use QnA via the terminal, never by double-clicking the app bundle (/Applications/Utilities/QnA.app/Contents/Resources/QnA). We are currently automatically importing the QnA.app from the dmg into IEM for deployment. Including the binary in the BESAgent bundle would make it slightly more convenient for us.
AgentControlPanel: I’ve never used this app. I can do the same things with ps and launchctl. I’d be fine if this was converted to command line only, especially if there was a “service besagent restart” style ability. Although it’s only slightly annoying, I have to do TWO commands to restart the BESAgent with launchctl. I prefer one.
AgentUninstaller: I believe this should be a standalone option, as well as included in the BESAgent bundle. I don’t have strong feelings on how it should be delivered (.app/.sh/.pkg). When we are required to remove the agent, I try to use the task inside IEM first.
The AgentControlPanel functionality is already there in script form. In fact the nice App Bundle merely uses the script in the Agent bundle. Look in Contents/MacOS and you will see BESAgentControlPanel.sh
Run it by itself and you will see all the same functionality. You will need to sudo the script to restart etc.
