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Deployment of the Certero macOS Agent Using 3rd Party Tools (Up to v8.7)

2 min read

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A third-party deployment tool (such as Jamf) may be used to deploy the Certero macOS inventory agent to your Mac fleet.

You'll need to:

  • Download the installer from a Certero server

  • Understand the installer parameters

  • Build a deployment package to suit your deployment tool

Download the installer

The installer you will reference in the deployment package is obtained from a Certero server. The file you need is named csinvm-install-x86_64.run and will be found in a path like this on a the Certero application server:

D:\Certero\Provisioning Services\InstanceRoot\<Tenant ID>\Endpoint Server\www\wwwroot\Client\Apple

Or in a path like this on a Certero Endpoint Server:

D:\Certero\AssetStudio\Endpoint Server\www\wwwroot\Client\Apple

Installation parameters

The installer installation parameters will configure the inventory agent with the settings it requires to communicate to an Endpoint server, e.g. to send inventory. It looks like this:

csinvm-install-x86_64.run -- <ENDPOINT_SERVER> <TENANT_ID> <PORT> <SSL>

The meanings of the parameters are:

ENDPOINT_SERVER is the hostname, alias or IP address of the Certero Endpoint server that the agent will communicate with (e.g. to send inventory). The target Mac devices require network access to this server on the port specified below.

TENANT_ID is the unique tenant ID for your Certero application. Certero SaaS hosted customers can request their tenant ID if you don't already have it, and on-prem customers can get the ID from the application server path explained above or from the tenant details in your Provisioning Server web application.

PORT is the Endpoint Server web server port. It will typically be 443, or sometimes 80.

SSL manages the use of SSL for the web server communications. Possible values are:

0 - disabled

1 - enabled

2 - enabled, and certificate invalidity will be ignored

Here's an example command to install the Certero client agent using HTTPS (port 443) and SSL:

csinvm-install-x86_64.run -- endpoint01.mycompany.local 91a8d5edc7f34d23b858b5a60eee7a58 443 1

Deployment package

We are unable to provide specific packaging support for third-party Apple deployment tools, but a Jamf package might contain a script like this:

#!/bin/bash
curl -q http://mywebserver.local/packages/csinvm-install-x86_64.run -o /tmp/csinvm-install-x86_64.run
cd /tmp
chmod +x csinvm-install-x86_64.run
sudo ./csinvm-install-x86_64.run -- endpoint01.mycompany.local 91a8d5edc7f34d23b858b5a60eee7a58 443 1

  • The curl command copies the installer from an internal web server to the tmp folder on the target Mac.

  • The chmod command makes the installer executable (so that it can be run).

  • The sudo command runs the installer with elevated permissions.

You'll need to check and adjust the approach according to your own conditions.

Final note

Although Certero inventory agents can be configured to auto-update themselves, it's good practice to occasionally obtain the latest Mac agent installer with which to update your deployment package.

Thanks for reading!