AirWatch,  VMware

Installing Adobe Creative Cloud with VMware AirWatch

So this week I have been playing with AirWatch (AKA WorkSpace One) and the latest version. I have been slowly working on fully automated MacOS build and I came across a bit of a snag with deploying some of the application or rather to my surprise, AirWatch could do apps that are not in the App Store.

One main application I have always had issues with is Adobe and getting this to package nicely has always been a pain down for various reasons. I did try and see if this would work with AirWatch natively and well it doesn’t but thankfully digging into some of their code it appears at the time of writing this they are using a Munki backend of which I am quite familiar with. In essence, it’s like SCCM for Windows.

The first point I need to make is I am offering this advice assuming you are correctly licensed for Creative Cloud and you take the relevant steps to ensure it only goes to the intended users despite them needing a registered email to activate the software.

If you want to learn more about AirWatch I am going to be doing a series of posts to complment this one or head over here for more information

TLDR:- Basically you need to create a managed package as the self-service isn’t signed and Apple Gatekeeper blocks this (a few hours wasted here). This then also caused the install to fail in a managed package but you also need to make this a managed install for it to work. Hopefully I can do a video guide soon

TLDR2:- I want to keep working on this and see if I can just get the Creative Cloud App so it reduces the install size

One of the first steps to do is generate the installer for Creative Cloud. You can do this by logging into https://adminconsole.adobe.com/ and selecting Packages at the top.

Once in here select create a package and select Managed package.

Select all the options you need within here such as locale

From here select Photoshop, I know this one works and to be fair most people using the cloud apps will need this. I did try Adobe Reader but again for some reason the install would fail

In this next screen it will confirm the application selected. Use a name that will be displayed on AirWatch, for example, I used Adobe Cloud to make it obvious to my users. It appears that you cannot change this in the main console which would be a nice feature to see in the future.

Once the package has built, download this if it doesn’t start automatically. You will now need the VMware AirWatch Admin Assistant which you can get here.  Open this and then drag you Adobe Cloud Install PKG file that is in the build folder of your download from Adobe

The application will sit there for a little while whilst it process the PKG file depending on its size as you may want to push the whole suite. Once it completes it should ask you to reveal this in finder

You should now see a folder with your application name, go into this and it usually has the please edit me at the end

In here you will find a .plist file you need to open this up in an editor and change the unattended_install value to true , I am using Xcode that allows me to select yes. At this stage, you could rename the DMG file and plist to something nicer reflecting this in here but it’s always best to test this as is first

Now due to the size limitation of 200mb at the time of writing this you need to upload the DMG that is within the same folder to a web server you clients can see. I would suggest protecting this still by HTTPS if you can and ensure you have this URL for the next step. In your AirWatch console select Apps & Books from the left and then Native. Within the sub window select App Application

Within this window select upload

In this window select Link and paste the in the URL to your web server hosting this file, select save and continue on the previous window

On the next window we need to upload the plist file you modified so the App Store knows how to install your app, do this by hitting choose file and then locate the file. Once done you will be back at the add application screen and select continue

You should now see the following screen and if possible at this point I add an icon so it doesn’t get the standard AirWatch icon. Fill in your categories and also and other details the like description you want and hit save and assign.

In this screen this selects which users will get the application shown in the app store, Press add assignment and fill in the details you want. I have selected All Devices just for demonstration purposes but do this to a group licensed for Adobe

I have found a bug on this next screen especially on Safari but select the radio button and then save and publish otherwise the assignment may not be saved.

You should now see a list of users this may affect if they are already in the correct groups and press publish

From here head back to the users machine and see if the application now exists, select Install and then confirm the installation

The icon should then change and this next bit can take some time depending on your web server and network

Eventually, this should go green and state installed. If you head into the users application folder you should now see Photoshop and the Creative Cloud Launcher where they can sign in for more applications

2 Comments

  • Christoffer Hansson

    Hi,
    Have read and gone through your guide. Great work! However, instead of using “On demand” I want to auto enrolled Creative Cloud to my Macs. After having chosen “App delivery method” as Auto it doesn’t work.

    Would be very grateful if you could complement this guide with a way to auto install CC to Mac. Thank you!

    Yours sincerely,
    Chris

    • Gareth

      Hi Chris

      Sorry for the delay I lost the notification for this somehow. I am just writing some more things up for this. So basically you have a group of Mac you want CC to install on when they enrol is that correct?

      I can try it in my lab and see if there is anything else that needs to be done if you let me know what you want to achieve

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