Adding an additional step after initial Device Setup Screen

[Christian Hochfilzer]

Good day OSX gurus. I have a question which I just can't seem to find the answer for anywhere although it would seem to be something which someone has come across.

In our enviroment I have a test setup I have been working on to get a company converted to a central provisoning/policy and software/system update system. My current test setup involves the use of Munki, AutoPkg/r and currently I am trying to solve outstanding issues through the use of Luggage.

As things stand right now I just can't seem to find any clear references or documentation to the following issues:

1) Initial First Boot operations: Due to the various issues I have read about in regards to Active Directory causing various problems I was hoping there might be a known method through which the initial "first boot/system setup screens" can somehow be customized so we can basically ask the user basic questions and use his response as variables which in turn are saved locally and used by tools like Munki or Luggage as input variables. My vision is to add a few custom steps to the initial setup screen which might result in the system auto rebooting 1+ times until fully completed after which such variables are deleted.

2) If something like I described above were possible then one of the key areas I would like to make use of them involves asking the user for his (our domain assigned) email address and password on which we would run a quick validation, save the username/password as two variables and then use Luggage to hopefully automatically enter these variables for the various areas they are required. For example, right now it has to be entered once for the Google Drive sync app, once for Google chrome, again for provisioning his Apple mail application with our Google Apps for Work email, calendar, contacts... And I think 2 other areas as well.

Bottom line is that this situation really frustrates me and I know that if we don't automatically set these things up for the user he undoubtedly won't do one of them.

3) Finally, on the same topic related to auto config/setup of applications I have one specific situation where users are required to use this annoying software which can only be run through citrix receiver. I have no issue auto-installing citrix receiver currently we need to manually define the domain URL, username and password to setup the account. It's a strange setup in that every single device need to be configured with the exact same credentials (providing company access/validation). Once authenticated succesfully those comany credentials can be saved and anytime the application is launched each user need to enter their own personal credentials (which can't be saved or auto-entered which is fine). I simply need a bit of clarity related to how we would effectively automate this type of worst case situation and automated app installs and configurations when there is no straitforward or known method to auto-configure it without going through the GUI setup steps.

Any clarification or likes would be greatly appreciated.

CH

[Joseph Chilcote]

1) Initial First Boot operations: Due to the various issues I have read about in regards to Active Directory causing various problems I was hoping there might be a known method through which the initial "first boot/system setup screens" can somehow be customized so we can basically ask the user basic questions and use his response as variables which in turn are saved locally and used by tools like Munki or Luggage as input variables. My vision is to add a few custom steps to the initial setup screen which might result in the system auto rebooting 1+ times until fully completed after which such variables are deleted.

I'm not sure how Luggage would help with this. For these sorts of activities, I use outset (https://github.com/chilcote/outset) which can run scripts at boot or login and store date in a plist known to my techs.  (Don't store their password, obviously.)  Luggage is a pkg creation tool, not something you pass variables to on clients.

 

2) If something like I described above were possible then one of the key areas I would like to make use of them involves asking the user for his (our domain assigned) email address and password on which we would run a quick validation, save the username/password as two variables and then use Luggage to hopefully automatically enter these variables for the various areas they are required. For example, right now it has to be entered once for the Google Drive sync app, once for Google chrome, again for provisioning his Apple mail application with our Google Apps for Work email, calendar, contacts... And I think 2 other areas as well.

Again, I'm not sure Luggage is the right tool unless the goal is to run via postinstall scripts.  In which case, you'll get better support on other less specific forums (etc the macadmin slack channel).

 

3) Finally, on the same topic related to  auto config/setup of applications I have one specific situation where users are required to use this annoying software which can only be run through citrix receiver. I have no issue auto-installing citrix receiver currently we need to manually define the domain URL, username and password to setup the account. It's a strange setup in that every single device need to be configured with the exact same credentials (providing company access/validation). Once authenticated succesfully those comany credentials can be saved and anytime the application is launched each user need to enter their own personal credentials (which can't be saved or auto-entered which is fine). I simply need a bit of clarity related to how we would effectively automate this type of worst case situation and automated app installs and configurations when there is no straitforward or known method to auto-configure it without going through the GUI setup steps.

From what I remember, it's not easy to deploy Citrix.  In an earlier version, I was able to pre-fill a plist in the user's directory with the URL and user name, and it was up to the user to enter their password.  I'm not familiar with the model of pre-populating a generic user/password and then having the user enter another set of credentials.  In any case, the work would have to run in the user's context.  Sometimes it's easier to simply document how to launch an app and enter the information, than it is to have a process that prompts a user for information that's entered into a plist so they don't have to enter that same information when they launch the app.  As the saying goes: six of one, half dozen of the other.

Cheers,

--joe