The jamf command that is placed inside the /usr/sbin directory has a number of things it does really well. Many of the tasks exposed in Casper Admin can be tapped into using shell scripts.

One nice option that the Casper Suite has for the mobile users in many an enterprise is the ability to restore a given machine to a known good working state. Casper addresses this using a concept known as a restore partition. The restore partition can be used to deploy a base set of packages to a client, or maybe just a functional operating system that hooks back into the JSS, or JAMF Software Server. Because you want the restore partition to be somewhat undefiled, you can hide it. Then, if a user needs to boot to the restore partition, they would simply boot the computer holding down the option key and select Restore (or whatever you have named it).

The /usr/sbin/jamf command can then be used to hide that restore partition using the hideRestore option. For example, assuming that the restore partition is named Restore, the following command will hide it:

/usr/sbin/jamf hideRestore

But, you might find that you want to deploy multiple hidden partitions. So let’s say that you had another for running disk tools. In our environment we could call it 318Tools. So to hide it as well, we would use the same command, but with the -name option followed by the name of the other partition we would like to hide, like so:

/usr/sbin/jamf hideRestore -name 318Tools

Overall, there are a number of uses other than simple patch management with the Casper Suite, and this is just one of the small things you can do with the jamf command, an integral part of the Suite.