IBM Notifier: A modern notification agent that integrates with Jamf Pro

This JNUC 2021 session looks at how the Open Source IBM Notifier provides a customizable, clear and consistent notification experience.

October 20 2021 by

Haddayr Copley-Woods

How to use IBM Notifier

This JNUC 2021 session presented by Jonathan Krauer, Noor Jabaieh and Michelle Shiho Schafer from IBM offers examples of how to use the Open Source IBM Notifier notification workflows from basic to advanced use cases.

The presenters offer examples of how they have applied this application at IBM and how others have adopted IBM Notifier in a range of notification workflows.

The notification delivery landscape

First, Jabaieh and Shiho Schafer discuss offer a comparison of IBM Notifier with:

jamfHelper
cocoadialog
AppleScript
terminal-notifier

And offer some information on updates to IBM Notifier.

Journey to IBM Notifier

Krauer walks attendees on how IBM Notify was designed from the ground up to be open-sourced and shared with the community, as well as sharing pain points and solutions. How they designed the Notifier, scrapped it, started another, and then went back to IBM Notifier.

Build of IBM Notifier

Shiho Schafer outlines the build of IBM Notifier:

Written in Swift
Supports Apple Silicon
Complies with Apple’s human interface guidelines
Is a fully compiled, signed and notarized app

And shows examples of IBM Notifier in action.

How Mac@IBM is using IBM Notifier

The team shares a few ways that their organization uses IBM Notifier and different ways to use the IBM notifier with simple Jamf Policies.

Then the IBM team takes a deep dive, with sample policies and scripts, into:

Notifier Health Check is a function attached to all scripts that call IBM Notifier in some manner, to verify application health and minimum requirements.
App updates and patching including Self Service policies with Jamf, and script details.
Keeping users informed shows users when a policy is running with a policy progress function with informational popups.
Onboarding for IBM Notifier is intended to allow any Mac admin to create a simple enrollment and onboarding workflow rather than a fully-fledged onboarding experience.

New IBM Notifier features

The team also went over new features recently released:

Window position
HTML support
Alert Functionality
Secondary Accessory view

See below for the full video, and below that find code snippets and resources from the talk.

## Resources: ## https://github.com/brysontyrrell/EncryptedStrings ## https://macadmins.slack.com/archives/CDPCNNLU8 ## ibm.biz/ibm-notifier ## Code snippets from 1167 - IBM Notifier: A modern notification agent that integrates with Jamf Pro ## FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY - USE AT YOUR OWN RISK ## Notifier Health Check ## ## these variables and the function should be added to a script that utilizes ## IBM Notifer. the function should run first and then actions taken based on ## the result #!/bin/bash CURRENTUSER=$(ls -l /dev/console | awk '{print $3}') # Policy triggers for downloading the icon/notification agent NOT_AGENT="nota_install" # Application path and required version for this script NA_PATH="/Applications/IBM Notifier.app/Contents/MacOS/IBM Notifier" NA_VERS="2.1.0" agent_check() { # will determine if the notification agent exists and is working. if not, download it tries=0 while [[ "$tries" < 2 ]]; do agent_help=$(sudo -u "${CURRENTUSER}" "${NA_PATH}" --help > /dev/null 2>&1; echo $?) if [[ "$agent_help" -eq 200 ]]; then # get the current installed version and compare to see if we need to upgrade inst_vers=$(sudo -u "${CURRENTUSER}" "${NA_PATH}" --version | awk -F": " '{print $2}') vers_list=$(printf '%s\n' "${NA_VERS}" "${inst_vers}" | sort -V | head -n1) if [[ "$vers_list" == "$inst_vers" ]] && [[ "$NA_VERS" != "$inst_vers" ]]; then tries="$tries" else echo "agent installed and working" tries=0 break fi fi if [[ "$tries " -lt 1 ]]; then agent_install=$(jamf policy -event "$NOT_AGENT" -forceNoRecon) fi tries=$((++tries)) done } agent_check ## Notifier Health Check - Complete ## Keeping our Apps up to date ## ## This script will perform an API call against a Jamf Pro instance with the ## machine UUID to determine what policies are in scope. it will look for custom ## policy triggers and then count them for the banner-style notification and ## present to the user. ## ## Note that the event trigger pattern in this script is static and should be ## changed to reflect your environment. #!/bin/bash CURRENTUSER=$(ls -l /dev/console | awk '{print $3}') # Notification binary paths NA_PATH="/Applications/IBM Notifier.app/Contents/MacOS/IBM Notifier" NA_VERS="2.1.0" JSSUSER="$5" JSSPASSWORD="$6" JSSURL="$4" FILEPATH="/Library/Application Support/JAMF/IBMPatch/patch.xml" BUTTON_1="Cancel" BUTTON_2="Update" # This is the category that should launch when you click the button JSS_CATEGORY="32" UDID=$(system_profiler SPHardwareDataType | grep UUID | awk '" " { print $NF }') # run a recon first to get the most up-to-date policy list jamf recon 2&> /dev/null # downloads available policies request=$(/usr/bin/curl -u $JSSUSER:$JSSPASSWORD --tlsv1.2 -H "Accept: application/xml" "$JSSURL/computermanagement/udid/$UDID/subset/policies" -X GET > "$FILEPATH") SW_COUNT=$(grep -c "patch_app_updates, Self Service" "${FILEPATH}") if [[ "$SW_COUNT" -eq 1 ]]; then PLURAL=" " elif [[ "$SW_COUNT" -gt 1 ]]; then PLURAL="s " else echo "no patches found, exiting" exit 0 fi # generate the customized text for the notification HEADING="Software Update${PLURAL}Available" DESCRIPTION="You have ${SW_COUNT} update${PLURAL}available in the Mac@IBM App Store." CMD_RESULT=$("sudo" "-u" "${CURRENTUSER}" "${NA_PATH}" "-type" "banner" "-title" "${HEADING}" "-subtitle" "${DESCRIPTION}" "-main_button_label" "${BUTTON_1}" "-secondary_button_label" "${BUTTON_2}"; echo $?) if [[ "$CMD_RESULT" -eq 2 ]]; then open "jamfselfservice://content?action=category&id=${JSS_CATEGORY}" fi ## Keeping our Apps up to date - Complete ## Keeping users informed ## This script is a generic example of spinning off a notification as a subprocess ## and updating the progress bar to show policy details. ## The triggers and progress bar text will need to be updated to fit your environment. #!/bin/bash CURRENTUSER=$(ls -l /dev/console | awk '{print $3}') NA_PATH="/Applications/IBM Notifier.app/Contents/MacOS/IBM Notifier" WINDOWTYPE="popup" ICON_PATH="/Applications/IBM Notifier.app/Contents/Resources/AppIcon.icns" TITLE="IBM Notifier" HEADING="" DESCRIPTION="" ### FUNCTIONS ### policy_progress() { pipe_name="pbnota" # FIFO creation and setup process for updating the progress bar find /private/tmp -name "$pipe_name" -delete mkfifo /private/tmp/${pipe_name} exec 5<> /private/tmp/${pipe_name} # IBM Notifier Progress Bar configuration HEADING="Update Your Old App" DESCRIPTION="The update policy is in progress." ACCESSORYTYPE="progressbar" ACCESSORYPAYLOAD="/percent indeterminate /bottom_message Uninstalling Your Old App... /user_interaction_enabled False /user_interruption_allowed False" sudo -u "${CURRENTUSER}" "${NA_PATH}" \ -type "${WINDOWTYPE}" \ -title "${HEADING}" \ -subtitle "${DESCRIPTION}" \ -accessory_view_type "${ACCESSORYTYPE}" \ -accessory_view_payload "${ACCESSORYPAYLOAD}" \ -always_on_top < /private/tmp/${pipe_name} & jamf policy -event "uninstall_trigger" -forceNoRecon echo "/bottom_message Installing Your New App... /user_interaction_enabled False /user_interruption_allowed False" >&5 jamf policy -event "install_trigger" -forceNoRecon echo "/bottom_message Updating Inventory... /user_interaction_enabled False /user_interruption_allowed False" >&5 jamf recon & while [[ ${CANCEL} -ne 1 ]]; do if [[ $(ps -ef | grep -q "[j]amf recon"; echo $?) -ne 0 ]]; then # policy completed, break the while loop here CANCEL=1 break fi sleep 2 done #kill popup if [[ -n $(pgrep "IBM Notifier") ]]; then pkill "IBM Notifier" fi } policy_progress ## Keeping users informed - Complete ## Onboarding ## ## The following two snippets contain the sample script and sample JSON used ## for the onboarding workflow. Policy event triggers are stored in an array ## and the initial policy (this script and potentially the IBM Notify install) ## is kicked off with the "Enrollment Complete" policy trigger. ## ## The sample JSON file is provided below the script and can be deployed to ## the device in any manner or even stored as a variable within the script ## itself. #!/bin/bash ENROLL_ARRAY=("en_security" "en_addsettings" "en_filevault" "en_complete") NA_PATH="/Applications/IBM Notifier.app/Contents/MacOS/IBM Notifier" ENROLL_JSON="/Users/shared/ibm_obd.json" # Call up the onboarding app and spin it off "${NA_PATH}" -type onboarding -payload "${ENROLL_JSON}" & # loop through enrollment policies while the employee looks through the enrollment app for policy in "${ENROLL_ARRAY[@]}"; do jamf policy -event "${policy}" done # We'll pop up a message letting them know that the system will reboot "${NA_PATH}" -type popup -title "IBM Quick Enroll Complete!" \ -subtitle "This computer will be restarted in approximately one minute to enable FileVault. \ \n\n After logging back in check out the IBM App Store located in your dock to install additional software." \ -accessory_view_type timer -accessory_view_payload "Reboot in -- %@" -timeout 59 -main_button_label "Got it!" -always_on_top & jamf reboot -minutes 1 -background -startTimerImmediately ## Onboarding - Complete ## Onboarding sample JSON { "pages":[ { "title":"IBM Quick Enroll", "subtitle":"Welcome!", "body":"Here's where you would talk about what's coming up, enjoy this picture of Nic Cage lovingly recreated from a scene of the hit production, *Con Air*.", "mediaType":"image", "mediaPayload":"/Users/Shared/NA_pic.jpg" }, { "title":"IBM Quick Enroll", "subtitle":"Have you ever seen a movie before?", "body":"Because if you thought that Nic Cage pic was cool this video set to the dulcet tones of A-Ha will blow your socks off.", "mediaType":"video", "mediaPayload":"/Users/Shared/NA_vid.mov" }, { "title":"IBM Quick Enroll", "subtitle":"Almost Done!", "body":"There's a couple of things left to review, check the info box below. You can close this application at any time and you will be notified of when enrollment has been completed.", "infoSection":{ "fields":[ { "label":"Make sure you spelled your name right!", "description":"Spelling one's own name is super important." }, { "label":"Always keep a stash of googly eyes handy!", "description":"You never know when a picture or object could use some sprucing up." }, { "label":"Is it finally over?", "description":"Yes... err No! I mean yes." } ] } } ] } ## Onboarding sample JSON - Complete

See how Jamf Pro can help your organization succeed with Apple.

Request Trial

Subscribe to the Jamf Blog

Have market trends, Apple updates and Jamf news delivered directly to your inbox.

Email Address (Work)

To learn more about how we collect, use, disclose, transfer, and store your information, please visit our Privacy Policy.

Tags: