Sheridan Posted February 5, 2018 Posted February 5, 2018 I'm not a big user of PM, and have had to re-introduce myself to it to sort out another school's issue - but I'm not sure if what I'm trying to do is even possible. Basically the macs are OD/AD joined and users login with AD credentials and get a PM profile - this works but I'd like to add a shortcut to an SMB folder into their dock (using the PM settings 'Dock items') If I put a folder path in there (i.e smb://server/path) the user simply sees a question mark in their dock, which doesn't do anything when clicked. Am I barking up the wrong tree with this? or is there a better way to do this with PM?
Sheridan Posted February 6, 2018 Author Posted February 6, 2018 (edited) Very odd - if I directly 'Connect to Server' with the same path it works fine - but not when pushed out with PM either as a dock item, or Authenticated Network Mount as a login item! Well - it seems you cannot deploy an SMB share to the dock with PM - fortunately WGM still works properly so I've put them back on that with immediate success. Edited February 6, 2018 by Sheridan
free780 Posted February 6, 2018 Posted February 6, 2018 Have you tried a Fqdn? Also check the logs on the mac server. If you have errors in the settings they won't apply.
eddyc Posted February 6, 2018 Posted February 6, 2018 I'm not a big user of PM, and have had to re-introduce myself to it to sort out another school's issue - but I'm not sure if what I'm trying to do is even possible. Basically the macs are OD/AD joined and users login with AD credentials and get a PM profile - this works but I'd like to add a shortcut to an SMB folder into their dock (using the PM settings 'Dock items') If I put a folder path in there (i.e smb://server/path) the user simply sees a question mark in their dock, which doesn't do anything when clicked. Am I barking up the wrong tree with this? or is there a better way to do this with PM? I tried various ways around this and found a work around that works perfectly. I’ll take a look in the morning and will confirm what I did.
Sheridan Posted February 7, 2018 Author Posted February 7, 2018 Cheers would appreciate that! I’m rebuilding the server so want to get this working from scratch
eddyc Posted February 8, 2018 Posted February 8, 2018 Cheers would appreciate that! I’m rebuilding the server so want to get this working from scratch Sorry about the delay in coming back to you! Yesterday was manic and we've only just had Internet access restored today following an ISP issue. What I have done is created a .weblock file and put it into the applications folder. You can then pin this to the dock using /Applications/Filename So, in my example, I have called the file MusicHandIn.weblock - The path to the "application" in profile manager is /Applications/MusicHandIn I changed the icon to the file by right clicking and using properties to change the icon to a drive. The file contains; URL smb://SERVERNAME/MusicHandIn$ This works everytime - We've had zero issues reported with this method. Previously we tried various roots in Profile Manager all of which were intermittent and they always appeared in the dock with the question mark. Just drop this in the applications folder on all of your clients and the jobs a good one. Hope that helps. Kind regards, eddyc 1
Sheridan Posted February 8, 2018 Author Posted February 8, 2018 Great - thanks for posting that. I'm just rebuilding a new macos server so I'll test it on that when its ready.
Sheridan Posted February 9, 2018 Author Posted February 9, 2018 This is weird, having rebuild the server and client (to 10.13) the links are now working - all apart from the one that points to a Windows server - but I'll try your method for that one. On a seperate note, is there no way in Profile Manager to hide all the drives/devices listed in finder under Shared? Its showing all sorts of nas/servers in there that I'd rather were hidden.
eddyc Posted February 9, 2018 Posted February 9, 2018 This is weird, having rebuild the server and client (to 10.13) the links are now working - all apart from the one that points to a Windows server - but I'll try your method for that one. On a seperate note, is there no way in Profile Manager to hide all the drives/devices listed in finder under Shared? Its showing all sorts of nas/servers in there that I'd rather were hidden. Hello No there is no way to hide those which is a pain. What I did is move all of our macs into a single VLAN. They can all see each other but using this way they do not list all of the other devices (Nas, Printers, Servers, etc). 1
Sheridan Posted February 9, 2018 Author Posted February 9, 2018 Hello No there is no way to hide those which is a pain. What I did is move all of our macs into a single VLAN. They can all see each other but using this way they do not list all of the other devices (Nas, Printers, Servers, etc). Actually that's probably a better idea anyway - I might borrow that! Having all sorts of issues with PM, does it work reliably for anyone! I've restricted which apps can be run to a list - but the users still get an error saying its been restricted. I.e I've added Word 2011 to the allowed apps list, but when they try to open it they see the message 'you don't have permission to use the application' This all worked so reliably in WGM - I was hoping PM would be a step forward.
Sheridan Posted February 9, 2018 Author Posted February 9, 2018 Looks like I might have to revert back to 10.9 and WGM after all - most of the apps don't work unless I untick the 'Restrict which apps are allowed to launch' option. Despite adding Word (just as an example) to the list, and whitelisting the /Applications/Microsoft Office 2011 and /Applications/Microsoft Office 2011/Microsoft Word.app folders it still says 'You don't have permission to use the application Word' Even if I whitelist the entire /Applications folder it still doesn't work! So basically I have to allow everything or most of the apps fail.
eddyc Posted February 9, 2018 Posted February 9, 2018 Looks like I might have to revert back to 10.9 and WGM after all - most of the apps don't work unless I untick the 'Restrict which apps are allowed to launch' option. Despite adding Word (just as an example) to the list, and whitelisting the /Applications/Microsoft Office 2011 and /Applications/Microsoft Office 2011/Microsoft Word.app folders it still says 'You don't have permission to use the application Word' Even if I whitelist the entire /Applications folder it still doesn't work! So basically I have to allow everything or most of the apps fail. I've not had any of these issues. Which version of OS X are you running on your server? I did find blocking and allowing apps flaky so just left all of those things on their defaults.
Sheridan Posted February 9, 2018 Author Posted February 9, 2018 Its 10.13.3 on the Server (5.5) and the macs are running 10.12. Do you not restrict what apps can be run at all then? To be honest - if Apple are taking away the basic management tools then I'm inclined to run them as 10.9 with WGM and ditch them in a year.
eddyc Posted February 9, 2018 Posted February 9, 2018 Its 10.13.3 on the Server (5.5) and the macs are running 10.12. Do you not restrict what apps can be run at all then? To be honest - if Apple are taking away the basic management tools then I'm inclined to run them as 10.9 with WGM and ditch them in a year. We have 10.12.6 and the server is on 5.3.1 No we don't restrict apps - We could never get this to work, even with WGM, it was so hit and miss. Particular with parts of apps calling other apps (Adobe Photoshop CS6 didn't work well for example).
Sheridan Posted February 9, 2018 Author Posted February 9, 2018 It does like PM has never been properly finished, and now they're dropping it. Switching these to Windows is an option I guess, but we'd lose logic pro.
eddyc Posted February 9, 2018 Posted February 9, 2018 It does like PM has never been properly finished, and now they're dropping it. Switching these to Windows is an option I guess, but we'd lose logic pro. I'm very much of the opinion that there intention is to bin everything else and focus on Profile Manager? https://tidbits.com/article/17760 Do you know something I don't about the future of profile manager? If you do, a link would be good as we have 150 Mac OS devices here so I need to formulate a plan if it is going to disappear. Cheers
kcrick Posted August 7, 2018 Posted August 7, 2018 Sorry about the delay in coming back to you! Yesterday was manic and we've only just had Internet access restored today following an ISP issue. What I have done is created a .weblock file and put it into the applications folder. You can then pin this to the dock using /Applications/Filename So, in my example, I have called the file MusicHandIn.weblock - The path to the "application" in profile manager is /Applications/MusicHandIn I changed the icon to the file by right clicking and using properties to change the icon to a drive. The file contains; URL smb://SERVERNAME/MusicHandIn$ This works everytime - We've had zero issues reported with this method. Previously we tried various roots in Profile Manager all of which were intermittent and they always appeared in the dock with the question mark. Just drop this in the applications folder on all of your clients and the jobs a good one. Thanks for your efforts on this, I've tried to create the same .webloc file - looks exactly like yours, pointing to my network share. just seems to open a blank finder window when it's double clicked. however if i open it, copy the URL and click "connect to server" and paste in the URL from within the .webloc, my network share opens. Any ideas? Also, to drop the .webloc on all the stations applications folders, have you found a way to do this from Profile manager? As it won't accept .webloc file externsions under the "apps" section of P.M. Thanks! KC
eddyc Posted August 7, 2018 Posted August 7, 2018 Thanks for your efforts on this, I've tried to create the same .webloc file - looks exactly like yours, pointing to my network share. just seems to open a blank finder window when it's double clicked. however if i open it, copy the URL and click "connect to server" and paste in the URL from within the .webloc, my network share opens. Any ideas? Also, to drop the .webloc on all the stations applications folders, have you found a way to do this from Profile manager? As it won't accept .webloc file externsions under the "apps" section of P.M. Thanks! KC Hello, That's strange - shall I upload a copy of my .weblock for you to look at? No I've not found a way to centrally deploy that - I put it on the image and reloaded all of the machines. A bit of a pain but it was the quickest way for us. Cheers, eddyc
kcrick Posted August 8, 2018 Posted August 8, 2018 it's fine, you don't need to upload it, mine looks identical to yours when looking at it with text editor, just opens a blank safari window when clicked, that's all. I've sort of got around the issue by mounting an authenticated network drive through profile manager as that seems to work similarly, drive then shows on the desktop of the mac. Just can't understand why the .webloc file doesn't work.
tg12 Posted August 9, 2018 Posted August 9, 2018 I've just come across this tool for configuring the dock in my own research with Profile Manager. Supports adding network volumes too. Basically, it will either create a profile or a package that can be installed to configure the dock. It seems to get around the limitations on this in Profile Manager! Dock Master - A Superior Profile Maker for Managing the Dock ? Techion 1
unixman_again Posted August 9, 2018 Posted August 9, 2018 I came across Dock Master yesterday too. I haven't tried it yet - far to many other problems to sort out with cloning Macs, but maybe once I can get them all running I'll try it.
tg12 Posted August 9, 2018 Posted August 9, 2018 I came across Dock Master yesterday too. I haven't tried it yet - far to many other problems to sort out with cloning Macs, but maybe once I can get them all running I'll try it. I set up a profile in it as a test and put it on the Mac I use for testing stuff, so far so good. Definite advantages over Profile Manager for managing the dock. 1
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