Collect Logs Without Ever Touching a Device

When facilitating an entirely remote workforce, sometimes simple things, like pulling up and checking log files, can seem like quite the task. But that doesn’t need to be the case! Let’s walk through a familiar scenario and how we can help by using logCollection along with Jamf Pro.

Does this sound familiar?

You receive a ticket for a user at home who is trying to download and install the latest version of a video conferencing software. Even though the install is reporting successful in Self Service, the software isn’t up to date and the user is unable to join meetings. You check the Jamf Pro policy logs and it looks like the software installed correctly and everything else seems normal.

The next logical step is to check the install.log on the Mac, however the user is at home so you can’t physically get to them or connect to their computer using normal methods. How are you going to get that log file? Wouldn’t it be nice if the user could launch Self Service and send all necessary logs to you? What if you just wanted to grab the logs quickly behind the scenes?

Say hello to logCollection

Now you can do both with logCollection, an open-source workflow created for just this use case. logCollection uses a policy in Jamf Pro to gather the logs you want, compress them and upload them to Jamf Pro. Then all you have to do is go to that computer record and download them under Attachments.

To get started, head over to Jamf Marketplace and follow these simple steps:

1. Download the latest version of logCollection
2. Upload to Jamf Pro
3. Create a policy
   • Attach script
   • Configure script parameters
   • Configure for Self Service (optional)

We hope this sheds a little light on retrieving log files even when you’re unable to physically interact with devices. By uniting the powers of logCollection and Jamf Pro, you’ll be well on your way to contact-free IT.