Deploying the Collector with AirWatch

Overview

If your company happens to use VMware products for Unified Endpoint Management, take advantage of AirWatch to deploy the Nexthink Collector on both your macOS and Windows devices.

Applies to platforms | Windows | macOS |

Installing and enrolling the AirWatch agent

This guide assumes that you have already installed the AirWatch agent on your macOS and Windows devices and that you have enrolled them. If this is the case, skip this step.

Otherwise, to manually install the AirWatch agent on a particular device, look for the application either in the Apple or in the Windows store, or download it from https://awagent.com/, and follow the installation instructions. Once the agent is installed, an enrollment window shows up. To enroll the device, if you know the server details:

Click the Server Detail button under Authenticate with.

2. Type in the address of the AirWatch server.

3. Enter the name of the group in which to enroll the device. A second login screen shows up.

4. Enter your AirWatch account username and password.

5. Optional: Click Connectivity status in the left-hand side pane of the Status menu to verify that the agent is connected to the server.

If successful, the AirWatch agent is now enrolled and ready to be controlled remotely.

Deploying the Collector

To deploy the Collector with AirWatch, you need to be an AirWatch administrator. Follow these steps in the administration console:

Create an Organization Group.
1. Login to the AirWatch administration console in the AirWatch server.
2. Go to Groups & Settings → Groups → Organization Groups → Organization Group Details.
3. Click Add Child Organization Group.

d. Fill in the properties of the group.

e. Click Save.

Add devices to the Organization Group.
1. Go to Devices → List view.
2. Select the devices that you have previously enrolled on which to install the Collector.
3. Click More Actions → Change Organization Group.
4. Enter the name of the group to which you want to assign the device.
5. Click Save.
Create an action to be executed on the remote devices.
1. Go to Devices → Staging & Provisioning → Components → Files/Actions in the left-hand side pane.
2. Click Add Files/Actions.
3. Select the Operating system of the target devices.
4. Fill in the name and enter the name of the Organization Group that you created above
5. Click the Files tab.
6. Click Add Files to upload files that will be copied to the target devices when running the Action.
  1. For Windows devices, upload an executable file that you have previously generated with the Nexthink Collector Installer,
  2. For macOS devices:
    1. Upload the csi.app file that you can find inside the installer package for installing the Collector from the command line.
    2. Upload the customer key and root-ca files that you can get from the Web Console, as explained in the prerequisites for installing the Collector on macOS.
  3. In a second window that shows up, enter the path where the installer files will be downloaded on the remote device.
7. From the Add Files/Actions menu, click the Manifest tab.
8. Click Add Action under Install Manifest.
9. Select Run from the dropdown list of Actions to perform.
10. Under Command line and Arguments to run, type in the commands by always specifying the full path to the referred files:

For Windows devices, type in the command to execute the installer.

C:\tmp\installer.exe

For macOS devices, type in the following two commands, the first to unzip the csi application file and the second to run the installer. Do not add 'sudo' before the commands, since all specified commands are run as root by default:

/usr/bin/unzip -o -a /tmp/csi.app.zip -d /tmpchmod +x /tmp/csi.app/Contents/MacOS/csi/tmp/csi.app/Contents/MacOS/csi -address <engine_ip> -port 999 -tcp_port 8443 -key <customer_key_file> -rootca <root_ca_file>

Click Save.
Create a Product to deploy the Action at the target device.
1. Go to Devices → Staging & Provisioning → Product List View.
2. Click the Add Product button.
3. Enter the name of the Product.
4. Optional: Type in a description of the Product.
5. Select the group that you created earlier in the Managed By field.
6. Select the same group under Assigned groups.
7. Click the Manifest tab.
8. Click Add and a dialog shows up.
  1. From the list Actions to perform, select Install Files/Action.
  2. From the list Files/Actions, select the Action that you have previously created.
9. Click Save. You will be prompted to Activate or Deactivate your Product.
  - Click Activate if you want to run the execution immediately.
  - Click Deactivate if you want to run it later.
Run the existing Action.
1. Go to Devices → Staging & Provisioning → Product List View to get a table of existing Products that indicates whether the Product is active (green light) or not (red light).
  - To run a Product that is not active, click the red light to turn it green. and it will be executed immediately
  - To re-run an active Product:
    1. Select the Product that you want to execute by clicking the radio button at the beginning of the row in the table.
    2. On the top of the table, click More Actions → Reprocess
Optional: Check the status of executed Action.
1. Go to Devices → List View
2. Select the desired target device to inspect.
3. Click the tab More.
4. Under Products, see the history of executed Actions and their status.

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