Installing the Access Manager Agent on macOS

Prerequisites

The agent must be able to validate the AMS server certificate. If you are using a self-signed certificate, or a certificate issued from a private CA, you'll need to add the root certificate to the system keychain, and configure it to be trusted.

The agent itself runs using launchd, and as it requires access to reset the root password, must be run as the root user.

OS requirements

The agent requires OSX 10.15 or later. Packages are available for both Intel and M-series Macs.

Download the agent

Download the agent for the appropriate architecture from the downloads page, or directly from the package repository using the script below.

if [[ $(uname -m) == 'arm64' ]]; then 
    curl -fssL https://packages.lithnet.io/macos/access-manager-agent/v2.0/arm64/stable -o ~/accessmanageragent.pkg
else
    curl -fssL https://packages.lithnet.io/macos/access-manager-agent/v2.0/x64/stable -o ~/accessmanageragent.pkg
fi

Validate the package signature

Ensure the package is valid, and has been signed by Lithnet Pty Ltd (5DK86QQXK3)

pkgutil --check-signature ~/accessmanageragent.pkg

Install the agent

You can open the package from finder, or use the installer command line tool to install the package

sudo installer -pkg ~/accessmanageragent.pkg -target /

Configuring the agent

Once the package is installed, it must be configured to talk to your AMS server. You can run the following command to perform an interactive installation

sudo /Library/Application\ Support/Lithnet/AccessManagerAgent/Core/Lithnet.AccessManager.Agent --setup

To perform a non-interactive installation, use the following command, replacing the server name, and registration key as appropriate. You can generate new registration keys using the AMS configuration tool.

sudo /Library/Application\ Support/Lithnet/AccessManagerAgent/Core/Lithnet.AccessManager.Agent --server ams.lithnet.local --registration-key XXXX

Check the log using the instructions in the Viewing the log files section below to ensure the agent registered correctly.

Restarting the agent

The Lithnet Access Manager Agent runs as a daemon using launchd. You can use standard launchd commands to start, stop and restart the agent.

sudo launchctl kickstart -k system/io.lithnet.accessmanager.agent

Uninstalling the agent

You can use the uninstallation script provided to remove the agent from the computer.

sudo /Library/Application\ Support/Lithnet/AccessManagerAgent/Core/Lithnet.AccessManager.Agent/uninstall.sh

Viewing log files

The agent logs can be viewed using the Console app, or using the command line

To show all events in the log use the following command

tail /Library/Logs/Lithnet/AccessManagerAgent/LithnetAccessManagerAgent.log

To show a live stream of log messages use the following command

tail -f /Library/Logs/Lithnet/AccessManagerAgent/LithnetAccessManagerAgent.log

File locations

The agent creates and uses the following files and folders.

/Library/Application Support/Lithnet/AccessManagerAgent/Configuration/LithnetAccessManagerAgent.conf - The main configuration file for the application. This contains the AMS server name and other settings relevant to the application.

/Library/Application Support/Lithnet/AccessManagerAgent/Configuration/LithnetAccessManagerAgent.state - This contains information used by the agent to store its current state information. This file should not be modified. It is generated by the app when it is run, and is not part of the installation package.

/Library/Application Support/Lithnet/AccessManagerAgent/Core - This directory contains the application binary files.

/Library/Logs/Lithnet/AccessManagerAgent/ - This directory contains the agent log files.

/Library/LaunchDaemons/io.lithnet.accessmanager.agent.plist - The launchd entry for the agent, symlinked from the application directory.