Hello,
Has anybody else tried pushing out the v6 Mac Agent? We're in the process of doing that. In the Inventory SMACC the computers show as successful:
...however not one of those machines reports in with the v6 agent. They all still show as "Snow Agent - OS X 5.1.0".
Has anybody else managed to deploy v6 of the Mac Agent?
Regards, David
Hi David,
Either something is wrong with the deployment, or Inventory / License Manager fails to update the version info in the user GUI.
If you open SMACC for Inventory Server and check the installed applications for one of the Mac computers you can find the raw data from the inventory agent. If this is still reporting with 5.1.0 I would say that the distribution failed, and Inventory Server is giving you a false positive of the distribution status.
You can also check the log from the agent in SMACC, maybe you will find the current agent version mentioned in it, it usually writes that when the agent starts. You might also find some information related to the upgrade process, if there was a problem and a rollback for example.
Hi Martin, Thanks! Yes checking that is quite interesting. If I check one of these machines, it shows the "date installed" as 11th October which indicates that the update actually took place. However the version remains at 5.1.0, which is strange. It looks like the wrong version was installed. I also checked the file size and it remains the same as the other 5.1.0 agents. So it appears that version 5.1.0 was reinstalled rather than version 6.
I am trying another update for the v6 Mac agent ... to see if the same problem happens again.
Regards, David
Hi David,
Could it be that you still have your previous Agent deployment "In Progress" in your Inventory Server?
So maybe the new deployment pushes v6.0. But the old deployment, depending on how it is configured, might be pushing back v5.1
It is worth checking.
Thanks Samuel, I did think of that, but I think you have to specifically tick a box to allow agent downgrades. However, I will double check it just in case. I suppose the other possibility is that there is a bug and the downgrade is still happening even though the box has not been ticked... It's worth double-checking.
Yes, I think that the push of agent updates is not 100% baked since sometimes, a published push does not start (I had the experience twice recently).
I remember that a year ago, when I started with pushes of agent updates, I found out that playing with that tickbox would trigger the update, otherwise, it would not progress. In your case, it seems to be progressing but the reports say otherwise. It might be good giving that tickbox a go.
Unfortunately, it is not clear how those pushes work: If you pause an old push, does the new push re-try to update the agents? Is the update based on a once-only check of the client or is it a continuous (daily?) check? For example, if I manually install an old agent (5.3) on an inventoried computer that had already received the new agent pushed (6.0), will the client receive the update again? Maybe a Snow specialist could shed some light.
Hi,
By creating an agent update package, you make an update available for the targeted computers. Once the agent asks the server for updates (http.poll_interval) and there are updates available, it will download and apply them.
The manually installed 5.3 will be updated to 6.0 again if you have a perpetual 6.0-update available for all computers.
Best regards
Robin
I have just noticed that v6.0.0 of the Mac agent has been removed from our inventory server and has been replaced with v6.0.1 instead, so I will push out that version and see if it is any better.
Hi David,
With Inventory 6, we also made a 64-bit version of xMetering (application usage metering on macOS) available that you might want to attach as a supporting file to the agent update package. It's located in the resources folder of the Inventory Server, where you find the agents.
Best regards
Robin
Hi Robin, thanks for mentioning that, it's interesting. Is that just a 64-bit version of the existing xMetering application?
Is there any specific documentation for xMetering that I should look at?
Regards, David
Yes, it is a 64-bit version of the same existing xMetering application. Regarding documentation, there is some information in the User guide for Inventory Agent for macOS, but just as the Windows agent has some Powershell scripts shipped with it as default, xMetering is part of the macOS agent.
Best regards
Robin
Thanks Robin, that makes sense. I guess by default we're running with the previous (not 64-bit) version at the moment then. So it might be worth considering the updated 64-bit version when we push out agent updates. Thank-you.
Regards, David
Hi Robin,
so if I requested a Mac Agent installation package with 6.0.1, I get the xmetering included in the installer and so I won't have to push it via an agent update rule? Agree?
regards,
Gert-Jan.
Hi Gert-Jan, that is correct. The xMetering module is included in the pkg file you get from Support. If you use Snow Inventory Server for updates, you will need to distribute the xMetering file which is in the agent repository where the agents are stored.
Best regards
Robin
I have since pushed out the newer 6.0.1 version of the Mac Agent to one of these machines that failed to update before.
That seems to have worked perfectly. So perhaps the slightly newer agent fixes the problem...
Regards, David
I have seen no notification from Snow about the reason why version 6.0 was withdrawn in the first place.
But there must be a good reason (stability, security, ... ?) why it is not even available in the SMACC anymore.
Could someone who has insight let us know if we should worry about this specific version 6.0?
Thanks
I wonder if we should check to see if any of the machines that supposedly took version 6.0 are still reporting in. The release notes for 6.0.1 says this:
"Corrected a bug that caused the agent to not be able to create inventory files, if the script-output folder is missing."
Does that mean these machines will no longer report in? I'm not sure. Maybe somebody from Snow can explain.
Hi DavidHobbs,
I can see some computers with agent v6.0 still reporting from our last DUJ
Ups! My mistake (I checked the wrong OS), no I see no v6.0 agent
Yes, I concur. What's more ... all the machines which showed "successful" for installing v6.0.0 of the Mac agent have gone quiet since. None of them seem to have reported in since the update. Oh dear.
For anybody who has pushed out v6.0.0 of the Mac Agent, I recommend you check to see if these machines are still reporting in.
Regards, David
Hi,
The agent asks for updates and implements them before it performs the scheduled scan. If you updated 5.1.0-agents to 6.0.0 through the admin console you can update them again with the 6.0.1 agent if they don't report back with 6.0.0.
Best regards
Robin
Thanks Robin, agreed it seems to be possible to update the v6.0.0 Mac agents even though they don't seem to report in anymore.
It seems like the problems with the v6.0.0 Mac agent are likely to prevent them from reporting in?
Regards, David
Yes, the agents are still communicating with the server, but probably have problems creating the inventory files. If that is the case, the 6.0.1 update will fix that.
Hi David, Samuel,
We installed manually MAC agent v6.0.1 to few machines. This cause a memory leak due to the xMetering. do you have that problem too?
I raised a case at Snow, but so far no reaction yet. I rolled back to v6.0.0 but no solution.
As you mentioned, as from v6, the xMetering x64 has been introduced... this make sense... it seems not yet stable...
Has somebody else that memory leak also? (See first line in image below)
Thanks. I have not seen that memory leak problem yet, but it's good to know about it. Where we have had problems I thought that v6.0.0 was the culprit. I thought that some of the machines which received v6.0.0 of the Mac agent were just broken and would need manual effort to install a newer version.
Please keep us updated if you learn anything. I will investigate more when I have time.
Regards, David
Hi David,
I've got a question related to the MacOS agent: we want to deploy it with means of Microsoft Intune but do not get it to work? Do you deploy via Intune too of do you use another deployment mechanism? If it's Intune I would like to get in contact with you and hopefully learn how to deploy the Snow MacOS agent using Intune
regards,
Gert-Jan.
Hi Dirk,
Sorry for coming back late - while checking your ticket i see that it has been linked to a registered problem record PRB0042292. Thank you for accepting the build tests, if you have not been contacted by the support engineer regarding these, you might get shortly.
On a side note, our sustainment engineers added the thought that this might not be a bug, but rather a misinterpretation of how memory is presented in Mac OS.
Basically, looking at virtual memory is not a very good indication of how much memory a process is actually "locking down". As example, a dev tested this and started xMetering2 on their own Mac, the virtual memory used shows > 4GB - but the real memory size is just 7MB.
This might be regarding the way how currently addressable memory for the process is being represented, instead the actually used memory.
Thanks,
Geoffrey Macquet
Customer Success Manager EMEA
I have the same question, I also see when I do the deployment 6.0.1 And it should be 6.0.2 64bit
second question , can you use the inventory server to deploy an update of the snow agent one it has been installed on the Mac ?
Hi,
Yes, you can use Inventory Server to create Agent Updates to distribute new versions of the agents to already reporting Agents.
If you have problems with updates, please contact our Support.
Best regards
Robin
on Oct 12, 2018
I'm starting to wonder if the updates are happening successfully ... but the v6 Agent for the Mac still reports itself as 5.1.0. That would match what we're seeing because the SMACC is definitely showing the updates as successful.
Hopefully somebody else can let us know what happens when they roll out new Mac Agents...