!NOTICE! This is only for versions below 3.0

Prerequisites

To set up this functionality, you must have administrative access to your JAMF environment, access to JAMF Composer, and the Banyan desktop app already installed/deployed. 

Important Information & Known Issues

This is for a basic LaunchAgent configuration. For more details on LaunchAgents please refer to Apple’s documentation. 

Banyan App Version 3.0+ now uses Launchd on Mac by default for start at boot. If you need to modify this plist used by the app, please contact your Customer Success Engineer.

Steps

Step 1. Creating a plist Agent. 

1a. Open up your text editor of choice.

1b. Create a plist file that meets your organizational requirements such as using KeepAlive to keep the Banyan app always running or other arguments as required. In this guide, I will provide an example plist below which has the minimum recommended arguments. 

Note: The Label string is shown here as “com.banyan.application” does not require a specific input and can be changed to suit your requirements if needed. However our example does follow the standard label format.

1c. Save your file as .plist. In the example above we used “com.banyan.application.plist”.

Step 2. Building a Package To Deploy Your LaunchAgent. 

2a. Open up JAMF Composer. Click and drag your newly created plist file from step 1 into JAMF Composer.

2b. Here you will notice it copies over the directories the file exists in on your machine. Change the directory structure to match the following. To ensure the LaunchAgent is deployed correctly to user directories, please include “USERNAME” as shown below. 

2c. Now click on the “Build as DMG” button and save your newly created DMG file to a memorable location. 

Step 3. Configuring JAMF to Deploy the LaunchAgent. 

3a. Login into JAMF and navigate to create “Computers” “Policies” and click “New” to create a new policy or add this to an existing policy. 

3b. Choose your “Display Name” and “Trigger” as required. However, we will be using Banyan Startup LaunchAgent for the display name and “Enrollment Complete” as our trigger. 

3c. Configure your Scope to meet the requirements of your deployment. In our example, we will be using “All Computers” and Save this policy.

3d. Go back into this policy we just created and edit it. Go to “Packages” and click “Configure”. Then click “Package Settings”. 

3e. Click “New” and upload your previously created DMG file to the “Choose File” option.

3f. Then proceed to the “Options” tab of this page and enable FEU. This will allow for JAMF to replace the “USERNAME” folder we specified in step 2b with the existing user’s directory name. 

3g. Click “Save” and navigate back to your previously created computer policy. Under that policy go to “Packages” and click “Configure” once again. Choose the package we just created and enable FEU on this screen as well.

3h. Save your policy!

Step 4. Testing your LaunchAgent

4a. Once saved you will need to activate your chosen trigger or use the CLI to forcefully bring down the policy. To do so you may use sudo jamf policy -id (your-policy-id-number)

4b. As a result you should see the plist file appear in the user’s directory under “/Users//Library/LaunchAgents”. Once a reboot or logout takes place the newly created LaunchAgent will take effect.