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MACs show as inactive in DS console

Updated: 21 May 2010 | 8 comments
MSDLTHelpdesk's picture
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We have finally got to the point where we are ready to start integrating the few MACs we have into our Deployment Server (and Notification Server...but that is a topic for another time.) I found an article on Altiris Juice (http://juice.altiris.com/artic...nd-ns-agent-macintosh) that gave me instructions. I have followed those instructions and installed the agent on some of our machines.



The machines all show up in the DS console. The only problem is, they all show as inactive. I cannot remote control them. I cannot do any power commands (shutdown, restart, etc.) with them. The icon shows up as greyed out in the console.



I verified that they are set to never go to sleep. I also verified that Apple Remote was enabled on them. This was mentioned in the article on Altiris Juice. I tried deleting them from the console to let them re populate. No matter what I have tried, they will show up as inactive in the DS console.



If anyone has any insight as to what the problem might be, I would greatly appreciate it. We have several MACs in out township that I would like to be able to start using the Altiris programs on to remote control, gather hardware and software inventory, etc.

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nrhudson's picture
03
Apr
2008
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The adlagent uses a adlagent.conf file to configure how the agent communicates to the DS. Doublecheck the adlagent.conf file on your DS to verify that it has the KILL_TIME= section commented out, and the UseHardTimeout= and HardTimeout= sections also commented out. The Darwin package you are using points back to the adlagent.conf file on install time and if those settings are not commented out, the clients will disconnect from the server and show as offline in the console.

Nate Hudson
Senior Systems Engineer
West Bend Mutual Insurance

MSDLTHelpdesk's picture
03
Apr
2008
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The one MAC that shows as active does not have these settings remarked out. I had to manually edit this .conf file to add in the IP address of the DS. After that, this machine started working. I did the same on the other three machines, but they still would not show as active.



I went in and remarked out these settings on these three machines per your update. This did not help the problem. They still show as inactive.



Could it be an OS problem? The one machine that is showing as active is running OS X 10.5.1. The three that are not showing as active are running OS X 10.4.5, 10.4.9, and 10.4.10. Could that be the probelm? Does the OS need upgraded on these?

MSDLTHelpdesk's picture
03
Apr
2008
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And one other item of note...the one machine the agent is working on is an iMAC. The three that are not working are Power MACs. Surely that wouldn't make a difference, would it?

nrhudson's picture
04
Apr
2008
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I am not a MAC expert, but if I was going to troubleshoot this, I would look at the client logs on the server to see if these machines have checked in lately, and I would also verify that the service on the MACs is running for the adlagent. I can't tell you how to do that, as mentioned above, but that is what I would start troubleshooting from a client perspective no matter what computer I am trying to get to connect.

Nate Hudson
Senior Systems Engineer
West Bend Mutual Insurance

aphud's picture
04
Apr
2008
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Jeremy,

On the DS 6.9 webinar I was on the other day , they said that Mac OSX Leopard (10.5.1) is only supported at this time, so I think your OS version is exactly the problem. I have the same scenario, 4 Mac's on 10.4.X and just one on 10.5 and wanted to try and get them to show up in our console also. I have upgraded to DS 6.9 on my development server but not on production and that was one thing I wanted to test once there.

APHUD

dfnkt_'s picture
05
Apr
2008
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I have Macs running 10.4.11 in my DS and can power control/send files to them etc. I do not believe remote control is currently possible (running ds 6.8sp2).

Mac Luna's picture
15
May
2008
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Located on kb.altiris.com is Mac OS X Imaging and troubleshooting Training Guide



Article # 40410





Let me know if you have any questions.

MSDLTHelpdesk's picture
14
Oct
2008
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I've still not had any luck in getting these MACs to show as active in the DS console. According to the KB article (40410), it works with OS version 10.2 and later. All of them I have are at 10.4. Does anybody have any thoughts on this?