FileWave 10 Webinar Q&A When will 10 be released? October 14 th, but you can sign up today to get into the beta program. Link: www.filewave.com/beta-program How stable is the beta? Should we use it for production? Its still beta - and we are still looking at a few critical - all the important ones are listed in the beta pages to raise awareness. We are confident of a stable product by the 14th, the beta should NOT be used in production. Can we use old MacOS versions by running older FileWave daemons on them? You can use older clients on older hardware and connect to the new server. We still have some XP machines. How will updating to 10 affect them? FileWave 9.0 clients still work with FileWave 10.0 server - just no new features. In this circumstance you will not want to upgrade the client. Are there going to be new Windows Admin installers available for v10? Yes, all the installers are going to be available for v10 on Windows. Could we use FileWave 10 to update from ios 8 to 9 without touching devices? Unfortunately no - Apple will only be make this feature available starting with ios 9 (reporting updates and handling the new API for updates is only implemented in ios 9) Let's say an auditor demands proof that we're operating within the number of software licenses for a particular application. Is there a way to print a report to prove compliancy with the # of licenses we've purchased? Yes - the license management functionality can do all of this for you - even for really complicated software suites like Office and Adobe. No problem at all. Is the enrolling URL specified in the manual for FileWave? if you're talking about enrolling ios devices, it should be. Default is usually https://your_server:20443/ios New features for ios 9 and FileWave 10...will they be deployable to our existing supervised devices without us having to "redo" (touch) them again? If you mean about device assigned license, the answer is YES. You simply have to convert the association License Assignment. Any updates to imaging within FileWave 10? We added support for El Capitan and Windows 10 images. Any new features or enhancement on FileWave Admin command line? A few things have been added, like: using names instead of IDs or being able to define a "root" level when importing files (so you can import something from your /tmp/xxx directory into a /Applications/myApp directly), for instance. What is autopkg? Link? It s a way to automatically scan for updates to common packages/software. You can then ask autopkg to cleanly import the package or Fileset into FileWave. It takes away all the boring work out of getting updates to common s/ware.
https://github.com/johncclayton/filewave-recipes With new Apple TV releasing soon, any plan of managing this device with more features in FW10 or future releases? In FW10, there is nothing more, but in future releases it will probably make sense to handle Apple TV, now that we can install apps on it. Has there been an improvement made in the startup time? Every time the admin opens, it has to download a lot of info before it shows the admin, and other logged in admins have the lag too? We have not worked on that specifically, but we're thinking long term on how to make everything within FileWave scale better. And yes, preloading everything works well, but only up to a certain point. Apple MDM, VPP & DEP Questions Is it possible to completely block side-loading of apps? There is a new restriction that prevents users from accepting new enterprise app authors. This plus the fact you now can disable app store AND install apps via MDM will gives you full control on what is installed on the device. Are the updates for ios 9 devices distributed straight from the FileWave server or from Apple? Updates for ios are still downloaded from Apple. The MDM protocol only allows us to report required updates and have (some) control on when to download and install them on each device. In order to change VPP to Per Device from Multiple User requires a huge change in VPP apps? You should probably try this on a subset of the apps/devices you have already - it really just requires 1 big sync and after that it s a fast sync. And it needs the app in question to have "opted in" to device assignment. Shouldn't be a big deal - and you can try it out piece by piece. We currently deploy our apps by uploading the IPA files through enterprise apps. Will we be able to convert these to VPP apps without losing any data? Haven't tried yet if the new flag that allows you to take ownership of an itunes app would work with IPA based. As Apple recommended, a way to deploy the itunes app is to use VPP. I m not sure if they took care of the transition from IPA to VPP. We'll test (or better : apply to the beta and you can try on your own :) ) How does device association update apps? Do we have to push out a newer version? No, apps don't need to be updated, it is only a license option. Can the MDM profiles still be removed from the ipads? Yes, unless you have DEP + supervised devices. In that case there is an option to prevent end users from removing the profile. Do we need to use one Apple ID per device on FileWave 10? If you want to use only device assigned licenses, you don't need VPP users anymore. Does the device association work with all apps or is it an opt-in for the developer? It is a developer's choice. At the moment all the apps we tested are enabled to device assignable license. Can apps being deployed without the App Store be updated without the App Store? Yes, Apple has allowed MDM providers to have more control on this topic. FileWave can now deploy apps without having the App Store available, so you can remove the App Store with the restriction and still push apps if you have ios 9 devices.
Do ios apps update automatically with the App Store disabled? I haven't tried if the settings you have in ios still work when App Store is removed in ios 9, but we are working on having FileWave do it for you. FW 10.0 will regularly check the version on itunes and compare if the one on the device is still the latest, and send an installation command to update it. Hopefully it will be in FW 10.0 ;) With ios9, we do not need to assign Apple ID's correct? Exactly - as long as you have Volume Purchase Licenses (VPP), and that the app developer has accepted device deployment (not all developers have now, but from our tests most of them have already). in FW 10.0 there is an option that allows you to choose how to you want to consume a license, either via VPP users (itunes ID) or via device. What is minimum needed to put a clean untouched ipad into FileWave control? You need to enroll it into FileWave MDM by going to a specific URL. Usually https://{mdmserver}:20443/. Then 2-3 taps to confirm and you're in. Now, if your device is a DEP device, you can set it up so that on activation it is automatic and it transparently enrolls into FileWave. Can we use FileWave to update new, untouched ipads to ios9? The OS update feature is available from ios 9. So you will potentially be able to upgrade to ios 10 from 9. If you choose to setup without Apple ID's they won't be able to track the ipads, correct? ipad tracking requires itunes account for now, so if you go with device app assignment, you may want to completely get rid of itunes ID on the device, as you don't need one for apps anymore, but then Find My Phone / ipad is likely to fail. We'll ask our Apple contact for more details - for now we focused on App deployment and did not really look at tracking. Will we still need the configurator to get to ios9? Yes, or you can update them OTA. Anything new regarding updates have been added starting from ios 9, so you have to be already on 9. Was likely too difficult for Apple to patch ios 8 to support it. Will we need to wait for FileWave 10 to enroll non-apple ID devices into FileWave by going to the URL? You ll need to wait for 10 to assign apps to devices rather than to Apple IDs. Keep in mind the feature will only work with ios 9 and up devices. Right now I am able to deploy Apps to units with no App Store on ios 9. Is this the same 'No Apple ID feature' that I need to set an app Fileset option for? No - with ios 9 and new VPP there is no need for an apple ID anymore. You can assign an app to a device (serial number), not a user (via itunes ID) With the App Store not available, can the students still download through the app portal or must they be sent directly to the device? App portal will still work - anything MDM driven works ; it's just the app store itself that is blocked to the end user. I've uploaded App store apps as Enterprise apps. Will I have to re-upload them if I want to use the new VPP without Apple ID features? As they are from the store, they don't need to be uploaded onto your server. Now that being said switching from enterprise apps to itunes apps would need to be tested to know exactly the impact of that (there is a possibility that device would lose settings).
About renaming the devices, when does the name get initially set? During DEP by the user or can we push a name to the device? For supervised devices in both cases - on DEP enrollment and on client rename. ios9 is more stringent on SSL intercept and we have had issues with our filters, will these cause problems with FileWave? There are no known issues with ios 9 (but would be a good idea to try the beta version of 10 to test). You can now setup a trusted certificate in FileWave MDM (signed certificate) in case your filters need one. Can enrolled ipads through DEP using configurator 2.0 automation get its FileWave client name from the ipad and not the DEP profile used? For now FileWave will change the name after enrollment and there is no way to disable that. Could be a feature request! In FW9, all ios are deployed with the same name 'ipad' as device name. Are you saying FW10 allows renaming device name when first enrolled into FW10 system? Yes - you could already set the FileWave name, but now it also changes the name on the device during enrollment. If you get a paid app for free on a special deal, how would you handle deploying for more than your previously purchased licenses? When you buy licenses it is added into your VPP account. That allows FileWave to use as many licenses as you have available in total. Do you support ios per app VPNs? Not yet - we had a version that implemented the profile but we never had the chance to have it work (we had limited information from Apple on this topic). If you have the need and think you would be able to test I'd recommend contacting support to see how we can help. Will there be a supervision certificate needed for Apple configurator 2.0 just like profile manager needs when using DEP to supervise an ipad, apply wallpaper and change name? Not that I know - you can simply add FileWave as "Servers" and have AC 2.0 and FileWave work together (i.e. have 0 touch DEP device enrollment). When switching from Apple ID assignment to device assignment, does FileWave automatically link the apps to the devices that the Apple ID was associated with or do you have to manually create those associations again? The way you choose if you want user or device assignment is at the association level. If you switch from 1 to the other the licenses are automatically re-assigned properly (unless they are irrevocable like for books, of course). Are you suggesting that we change our ios VPP licenses from User to Device in production once we update to FW 10? That sounds scary to me...:-o If you already have Apple ID for each devices is not a big problem (you can keep it). For new devices you can choose Device Assignment to avoid the extra work for setting up Apple IDs. How do you setup ios to force patch updates of ios 9 to 9.01 or 9.0.2, for example? If you know how to deploy a software update to a Mac, you know how to do it for an ios device. The only issue is that ios 9.0.0/9.0.1 had an issue that would force download and install to be 2 different commands - so you have to use timed association. We're in touch with Apple and hope this issue will be fixed in a coming ios release soon.
Engage Questions Can we restrict student access to the profiles areas so they cannot trust a developer that we don't approve of? There is a new restriction to prevent end user from trusting new developers in ios 9. Can Engage Profiles be assigned to just a single device or select group of devices? Yes, if you select devices the profiles are sent only to selected ones, with no selection meaning "all devices". Our students are on Chromebooks more than Macs at this point. Can Engage do anything useful with students on Chromebooks? We're working on Engage for Chromebooks - no official release date yet. Does Engage allow teachers to see the screen of a Mac yet? Not yet - we definitely hear you though and appreciate the request - had this one a lot. Fileset Dependencies Questions Do dependencies work for Kiosk associations? Yes, dependent Filesets without the kiosk flag won't show up in kiosk, but all kiosk items needing them will first install these. Is it possible to configure more dependencies? App1 needs Java, App2 needs App1 and so on? Sure - each Fileset can have multiple dependencies - and a Fileset being a dependency for another Fileset can be dependency for another one, as long there is no circular dependency it should be fine. Do the dependencies work with Windows Apps as well? YES! Can we set a Fileset group as dependency? No, but you can add multiple Filesets in the list. Could we use dependencies for OS updates? Dependencies are supported for desktop, so you could use any software updates in there. Can you set up dependencies with profiles? We manage our device printers with profiles and would like the drivers to be installed before the profile is applied? Profiles cannot have dependencies, but can be dependencies for other Filesets Is SIP optional or required? SIP is on by default on all 10.11 shipped machines. Can be turned of with a bit of effort - but not easily. Is the SIP report only for Filesets or does it also audit.pkg distributions? Only Filesets. It won't do pkg or scripts. Just to confirm - FileWave will look through all of my Filesets and tell me if any are in violation of SIP? Does this include scripts that are run as a part of a Fileset? It'll work for any Fileset, as long as the Fileset contains path information - e.g. it won't do deep inspection of packages or scripts. So short answer: yes.
Is there a dependencies column in the Filesets view, or some other way to view dependencies without opening the Fileset object? Not yet. You can have multiple dependencies, so showing them in a single column would be hard. Is there a way to find all Filesets with dependencies? Not really - you can get the info for one Fileset but not a full view (which would be pretty unreadable if you have complex dependencies). Is there a way to tell what Filesets are dependent of a Fileset? Yes - you can see for each Fileset that one depends on it, and on which it depends. Is there a way to tell how many Filesets are depending on a single Fileset? Yes - use the reverse dependencies view. When you delete a Fileset, does it automatically check if there are dependencies? If you try to delete a Fileset having Filesets depending on it, you'll be prompted with a message. Then you can decide to delete the Fileset or cancel the operation In the event of a software update or upgrade, for instance testing...and it may be dependent upon flash or air...how would you go about working with that Fileset? Would you do what is normal, create the updated test Fileset and set the dependencies? The workflow is to add as dependencies all Filesets you want to install "before" the Software Update. Remote Control Questions With regard to remote control of OS X devices - we currently use ARD for this. What kinds of enhancements have happened with FileWave 10? We're using different tools than ARD. The big pluses are integration directly into the Admin AND it supports NAT, so you don't have to care about being on the same network or forward ports. Does remoting in on a PC still require UltraVNC? While UltraVNC is deployed as an integral part of the FileWave client, It is started/controlled by FileWave and only ever listens on localhost. We run a special secure traffic repeater within the FileWave server as well as a very scalable command infrastructure through the boosters to enable control over NAT based environments. This is all included in the V10 client, you do not need to deploy UltraVNC as a separate Fileset Is the remote control function/vnc over an encrypted connection? Yes, it's encapsulated and goes over SSL. Will there be an activation lock removal feature? Activation Lock is managed by FW since version 8.6. You can remove the lock. There's an Assistant that allows managing the Bypass code needed to remove the lock. What is the password for the VNC? Is it the client password? Yes, is synchronized with the FileWave client.