Nov 08, 2018 How to Install Spiceworks for Windows PC or MAC: Spiceworks is an Android Productivity App that is developed by Spiceworks, Inc. And published on Google play store on Aug 8, 2016. It has already got around 10,000+ downloads so far with an average rating of 4.0 out of 5 in play store. Discover Windows, Mac, and Linux machines, UPS devices, storage and even track non-networked devices. We use standard protocols to gather accurate device info all without an agent. Basically, if it’s on your network – Spiceworks can find it! Learn more about network inventory ».
Spiceworks has a tough time identifying and scanning Apple devices running OSX if Spiceworks is not configured to scan with an Administrator account, if your Mac does not have Remote Login (SSH) enabled, or if your Mac's firewall is blocking SSH access.
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- Spiceworks displays an interactive free network diagram of how your devices relate to each other (layer-3 routers supported). You can manually add, edit, move and resize devices to exactly reflect your network, and even choose filters and views to display the device details you care most about in your network map!
Use these steps to get your Mac properly configured:
4 Steps total
Step 1: Create an Administrator account
From the System Preferences page, select Accounts. Click the + button in the bottom left to add a new user.
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Be sure to select 'Administrator' in the 'New Account' dropdown.
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Note: To make this easier, use the same Account name (username) and password for each one of your Macs.
Step 2: Enable Remote Login
From the System Preferences page, select Sharing. Check the Remote Login checkbox, and be sure to 'Allow access for' either All Users, or only the new Administrator account you created in the previous step.
Step 3: Configure the OSX firewall
From the System Preferences page, select Security. Click the Firewall tab, and ensure the Firewall is 'off'.
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The OSX firewall is off by default. If the firewall is on, click the Advanced... button and ensure you have Remote Login (SSH) listed as 'Allow incoming connections'. Also be sure 'stealth mode' is not checked. This ensures Spiceworks can ping your Mac, and use SSH to scan your Mac on port 22.
Step 4: Configure Spiceworks to use your new Administrator account
You're ready to rescan! Be sure you have Spiceworks configured to use the new Administrator username and password we setup in step 1 above.
You will need to complete these steps on each Mac device on your network if Spiceworks is not finding all of your Macs.
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Remember, to make this easier use the same Account name (username) and password when configuring each one of your Macs.
References
- Apple - About Remote Login, OpenSSH
- Apple - Allow a remote computer to access your Mac
15 Comments
- Jalapenowehttam Jan 14, 2014 at 03:15pm
Have you had any trouble adding OS X Mavericks to your scan?
- Ben.B (Spiceworks) Jan 14, 2014 at 05:48pm
Haven't had any reports - if you do have a problem with a Mac running Mavericks we'd like to hear about it, though! Could you post up here? http://community.spiceworks.com/topic/new?forum_id=2
- Pimientodennis.wurster Aug 29, 2014 at 08:43pm
This works fine, but I can't recommend turning off the firewall. Better to allow incoming connections for SSH while the rest of the firewall is intact.
The 'OS Kernel' field on the scan reports is useless to Mac Adminstrators, though. As of this writing, it lists a value of 'Darwin 13.3.0'. This is accurate, but is not valuable. We need the version of the System, not of the Kernel. System Version values would report '10.9.4' instead, for example. I've submitted a question/topic via Ben.B's link above. Would love to submit a feature request, but I'm not sure where to do this. - Ben.B (Spiceworks) Aug 29, 2014 at 09:09pm
Thanks for the feedback Dennis. I think the firewall is disabled by default in OSX (at least that was my thinking when I wrote the steps) - I agree, though, its better to open up access through the firewall for just SSH, instead. I'll open up a feature request internally on the OSX version for ya.
- PimientoDannoJB Apr 1, 2015 at 08:39pm
Struggling a little to get my head around root access required, shared across the estate that is then opened through ssh to a spiceworks server potentially hosted in the cloud... doesn't seem safe?
- Ben.B (Spiceworks) Apr 1, 2015 at 09:47pm
Hi Danno, typically you run scans using Spiceworks on a local network, rather than from the cloud. Administrative (root) access is required to run some of the SSH commands we execute to collect the various information we pull into Spiceworks for you.
- PimientoJHamel Jun 19, 2015 at 05:03pm
I've used this method and it works, but the company I work for has approximately 40 other macs, and I do not want to go to each one manually. Is there a way to automate this process/perform remotely?
- Ben.B (Spiceworks) Jun 19, 2015 at 08:00pm
It looks like this should be possible using Configuration Profiles. Here's some info on that: http://training.apple.com/pdf/wp_osx_configuration_profiles_ml.pdf and https://www.apple.com/support/osxserver/profilemanager/
I haven't done this before, but it looks like OSX Server has an app called Profile Manager that allows you to create configuration profiles, which can then be deployed to your Macs.
- Anaheimjddj Jun 24, 2015 at 06:07pm
Any update if you can enable remote login thru OSX profile manager, that is the only thing i'm missing. If not possible, anybody knows how to push a script to be run by macs during start up, just to start the ssh service
Thanks
- Ben.B (Spiceworks) Jun 24, 2015 at 06:16pm
Hey guys, if you don't get any replies on this here from other Apple experts you might be able to get a reply by posting in the Apple group here on the Community. Surely someone out there is using profile manager... https://community.spiceworks.com/hardware/apple
- AnaheimJason Rasmussen Mar 23, 2016 at 07:45pm
I have multiple Macs on premise, and this has worked in the past, but with the new El Capitan I cannot get Spiceworks to scan it.
- Ben.B (Spiceworks) Mar 24, 2016 at 08:34pm
Hey Jason, I just retested/confirmed with 10.11.4 (El Capitan), and this tested out ok. Once I enabled 'Remote Login' (SSH) in Settings > Sharing, I was able to manually login via SSH using my admin credentials. I ran a scan with the same credentials and got a good scan - so we should able to scan them for you. If you're having trouble getting your Macs scanned in we can help you sort it out - just email us at support@spiceworks.com. :)
- PoblanoDave MacMedix Nov 23, 2016 at 06:53pm
I just started with SpiceWorks, and my network has mostly Macs. Because there is no DC, I went to each Mac, (via remote control screen sharing which was already enabled), added a new admin account in Users & Groups, gave it admin privs, then opened the Sharing System Preference & enabled 'Remote Login' allow it for only this 1 new account.
Older Macs, like OSX 10.4 aren't as selective, they either have Remote Login on or off, they can't enable SSH for just selected accounts. SpceWorks seems not able to scan the even older G3 Macs running Mac System 9. (Yes, there are some still pre-OSX Macs in play, they just keep going - Since the 1990's!).If you don't give Admin privs to this account, SpiceWorks will still get some info, but not all the great info you'd like to have.
As for the account password, you have 2 choices.
Use the same username AND the same password for all machines. OR
Use different usernames and different passwords for each machine.
What does NOT work is to use the same username and different passwords for each machine.I did run into one problem; You must not enable Remote Login on a SFTP server. That is a conflict on port 22 (probably after you reboot) and only 1 service will win. You probably want your SFTP server to serve SFTP, so leave that alone. If you really want to scan your SFTP server, you could disable the SFTP service, enable SSH Remote Login, scan it, disable SSH, and launch the SFTP server again.
I don't know that an agent would be any easier, (I actually don't know) but if it could run on an unused port (not 22) that would be nice.
- Ben.B (Spiceworks) Nov 23, 2016 at 08:22pm
Thanks for the response, Dave. I don't think we've done any testing with pre-OSX. Sorry that doesn't work. Its pretty cool that you still have some of them running since the 90's!
We are working on a Mac agent (currently in testing) that might help for the machines where you have an SSH/SFTP port conflict. Look for an announcement on that in the coming months. :)
- PimientoDeskue Feb 24, 2019 at 04:33pm
Hello All,
Trying to scan a Macbook running Mojave and SW says that the device was scanned but still only giving me basic information like device name.
- Table of Contents
IT Pros who have admin rights on their network.
Organizations with less than 1,000 devices on their network. It will work with more but it won’t be as fast.
Running on a PC. It discovers Windows, OS X, Linux and Unix but you need to run it from a Windows computer on your network.
Minimum Requirements
Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Server 2008 R2 or Windows Server 2012 R2.
1.5 GHz Pentium 4 class processor
Spiceworks For Mac
2 GB RAM
Browser Requirements
Officially Supported:
- Firefox most recent version
- Chrome most recent version
- Internet Explorer 11+
Not supported but users report good experiences with:
- Safari
Installed Software
The Spiceworks suite includes:
- Nmap
- Ruby
- SQLite
- Apache
- WinPcap
Uninstalling Spiceworks
Be sure you want to uninstall Spiceworks, because once you remove Spiceworks, all your Help Desk (including tickets), Inventory, etc. will be deleted forever. All files listed under Installed Software above will be uninstalled.
- Navigate to the Spiceworks directory. By default, this is c:Program FilesSpiceworks.
- Run uninst.exe.
Spiceworks For Mac Catalina
Alternatively:
- On the computer that contains the installation of Spiceworks, go to Remove Programs through the Control Panel.
- Find Spiceworks in the list and click on it.
- Click uninstall to remove the program.
Spiceworks For Mac Os X
For additional information about uninstalling Spiceworks and closing your account, visit the community help and support page.