Aka “The JSS Database Utility needs to be executed with superuser privileges”
Hey all. This is something that I occasionally come across as an eternal consultant and keep forgetting the exact command needed to work around it, so what better way to document it then via an externally accessible blog :p
Background
So, what am I talking about? Well, if you launch the JSS Database utility on Windows with the wrong user you get this error message:
The JSS Database Utility (usually found in “C” > “Program Files” > “JSS” > “bin”) needs to be run by the full local administrator account, rather than a domain administrator or a network user given local administrator privileges. If you fail to use this specific account, you get the above error.
As you can imagine, it’s not typically considered good practice to give out these account details for general backup maintenance tasks, doubly-so for external staff. However, as long as you are an administrative user on the Windows server, we have a way around it.
Lets do this!
Here we go:
1) Click the Windows / Start button and enter ‘cmd’
2) Right-click on the ‘cmd’ program and click “Run as administrator”
3) If the UAC protection appears, confirm this is in response to you trying to launch ‘cmd’ as an administrator, and click “Yes”
4) This should launch the ‘cmd’ program with administrative rights
5) Enter the below command and hit the ‘return’ key. Adjust the path if your JSS folder is not in the default location.
Don’t forget: you can also use tab-complete to speed up enter the path, and as its a Windows OS, it’ll be backslashes (“\”) instead of standard slashes (“/”)
java -jar "C:\Program Files\JSS\bin\JSSDatabaseUtil.jar"
6) This should then launch the JSS Database Utility Java-application allowing you to perform whatever task you need to do.
7) One other point to remember is not to close the cmd program until you’ve finished your tasks in the JSS Database Utility and closed that application. If you close the cmd session first, it’ll forcibly quit the Utility.
8) Job done, consume beverage of choice as a reward.
Summary
And there we go, we covered how you can launch and work with the Jamf Pro / Casper JSS Database Utility on Windows with any administrator account. Hopefully that’ll help some of you out (or future me when I forget again)! As always, if you have any questions, queries or comments, let us know below (or @daz_wallace on Mac Admins Slack) and I’ll try to respond to and delve into as many as I can.
The usual Disclaimer:
While the author has taken care to provide our readers with accurate information, please use your discretion before acting upon information based on the blog post. Amsys will not compensate you in any way whatsoever if you ever happen to suffer a loss/inconvenience/damage because of/while making use of information in this blog.