Dynamic construction of configuration profiles for settings common across different operating systems

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11443283-B2
Application number	US-201715660990-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jul 27, 2017
Priority date	Jun 1, 2017
Publication date	Sep 13, 2022
Grant date	Sep 13, 2022

Abstract

Disclosed are various examples for the dynamic construction of configuration profiles using settings common across different operating systems. A computing environment having a management service can determine variable names for inclusion in configuration profiles based on operating systems. The computing environment can dynamically generate configuration profiles using the appropriate variable names such that the value provided by an administrator is a value or parameter of the variable name for deployment to a client device having an operating system capable of interpreting the value using the variable name.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A system, comprising:
at least one computing device; and
program instructions executable in the at least one computing device that, when executed by the at least one computing device, cause the at least one computing device to:
identify a value from a field of at least one user interface, the field being associated with a setting common to a plurality of operating systems;
determine a first variable name for inclusion in a first configuration profile in association with the value based at least in part on a first one of the plurality of operating systems;
determine a second variable name for inclusion in a second configuration profile in association with the value based at least in part on a second one of the plurality of operating systems, the second one of the plurality of operating systems being different than the first one of the plurality of operating systems;
generate the first configuration profile such that the value is a parameter of the first variable name for deployment to a first client device having the first one of the plurality of operating systems installed thereon; and
generate the second configuration profile such that the value is a parameter of the second variable name for deployment to a second client device having the second one of the plurality of operating systems installed thereon, wherein the first configuration profile and the second configuration profile are each configured to, when installed on a respective client device, configure the respective client device and designate a respective agent application as a device administrator, the agent application as the device administrator being configured to control access to at least one software or hardware function of the respective client device.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein:
the first configuration profile comprises a first extensible markup language (XML) document programmatically generated by the at least one computing device; and
the second configuration profile comprises a second XML, document programmatically generated by the at least one computing device.

3. The system of claim 2 , wherein:
the first XML document is generated based at least in part on a first predefined format corresponding to the first one of the plurality of operating systems; and
the second XML document is generated based at least in part on a second predefined format corresponding to the second one of the plurality of operating systems.

4. The system of claim 3 , wherein the first predefined format is different than the second predefined format.

5. The system of claim 1 , further comprising program instructions that, when executed, cause the at least one computing device to:
instruct a first agent application executable on the first client device to configure the first client device using the first variable name and the value as specified in the first configuration profile; and
instruct a second agent application executable on the second client device to configure the second client device using the second variable name and the value as specified in the second configuration profile.

6. The system of claim 1 , further comprising program instructions that, when executed, cause the at least one computing device to maintain a database that comprises a mapping of a name attribute for the field to the first variable name corresponding to the first one of the plurality of operating systems and the second variable name corresponding to the second one of the plurality of operating systems.

7. The system of claim 1 , wherein the setting common to the plurality of operating systems is one of: a wireless fidelity (Wi-Fi) network setting, a virtual private network (VPN) setting, and an email server setting.

8. A non-transitory computer-readable medium embodying program code executable in at least one computing device that, when executed by the at least one computing device, causes the at least one computing device to:
identify a value from a field of at least one user interface, the field being associated with a setting common to a plurality of operating systems;
determine a first variable name for inclusion in a first configuration profile in association with the value based at least in part on a first one of the plurality of operating systems;
determine a second variable name for inclusion in a second configuration profile in association with the value based at least in part on a second one of the plurality of operating systems, the second one of the plurality of operating systems being different than the first one of the plurality of operating systems;
generate the first configuration profile such that the value is a parameter of the first variable name for deployment to a first client device having the first one of the plurality of operating systems installed thereon; and
generate the second configuration profile such that the value is a parameter of the second variable name for deployment to a second client device having the second one of the plurality of operating systems installed thereon, wherein the first configuration profile and the second configuration profile are each configured to, when installed on a respective client device, configure the respective client device and designate a respective agent application as a device administrator, the agent application as the device administrator being configured to control access to at least one software or hardware function of the respective client device.

9. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 8 , wherein:
the first configuration profile comprises a first extensible markup language (XML) document programmatically generated by the at least one computing device; and
the second configuration profile comprises a second XML document programmatically generated by the at least one computing device.

10. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 9 , wherein:
the first XML document is generated based at least in part on a first predefined format corresponding to the first one of the plurality of operating systems; and
the second XML document is generated based at least in part on a second predefined format corresponding to the second one of the plurality of operating systems.

11. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 10 , wherein the first predefined format is different than the second predefined format.

12. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 8 , further comprising program code that, when executed, causes the at least one computing device to:
instruct a first agent application executable on the first client device to configure the first client device using the first variable name and the value as specified in the first configuration profile; and
instruct a second agent application executable on the second client device to configure the second client device using the second variable name and the value as specified in the second configuration profile.

13. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 8 , further comprising program code that, when executed, causes the at least one computing device to maintain a database that comprises a mapping of a name attribute for the field to the first variable name corresponding to the first one of the plurality of operating systems and the second variable name corresponding to the second one of the plurality of operating systems.

14. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 8 , wherein the setting common to the plurality of operating systems is one of: a wireless fidelity (Wi-Fi) network setting, a virtual private network (VPN) setting, and an email server setting.

Assignees

• Airwatch Llc

Inventors

• Rykowski Adam Stephen
• Osman Huda
• Tople Mithila
• Postema Jacob
• Dejiacomo Jeremy
• Patel Harit
• Sigamani Manikandan

Classifications

• G06F16/211

  Schema design and management · CPC title

• H04W12/065

  Continuous authentication · CPC title

• H04L67/01

  Protocols · CPC title

• H04W84/12

  WLAN [Wireless Local Area Networks] · CPC title

• G06F16/24578

  using ranking · CPC title