Deploy Huntress for Mac with Atera

Team: Huntress EDR
Product: Atera
Environment: MacOS
Summary: Deploy Huntress with Atera on MacOS

Installing any product should be a breeze, and that's especially true with Huntress and Atera. This document will walk you through deploying the Huntress macOS Agent without a reboot. This is a two-step process that involves:

1. Creating the script within Atera

2. Deploy Agents via Atera

Creating the Script within Atera

1. Login to your Atera instance and click Admin, then Scripts.
2. Click on the "Create Script" button located on the right-hand side of the Scripts page.
3. Fill out the fields for "Description," "File Name" (be sure to select ".sh" as the extension), and Max Script Run Time (minutes). We recommend setting this to 2, as the default of 10 minutes is excessive for Huntress deployment needs. You can choose anything you like for the Description and File Name. Suggested values are in the below screenshot. Be sure to leave "Run As" at its default setting of System and leave Arguments blank. 
4. Grab a copy of our Atera macOS deployment script from here.
5. Copy (or save) the contents of that link, and paste it into the Script Editor in the "Create Script" Window that popped up in Step 1.

   

6. Scroll down to around line 44. You're looking for sections that start with defaultAccountKey. It should look similar to this:
   

7. Retrieve your Huntress account key from your dashboard. Insert the key between the quotation marks of the defaultAccountKey variable. (Use your own key; the one in the image below is a non-functional example.)

8. Atera uses Variables that will allow you to dynamically enter the Organization Key when you deploy the scripts to your endpoints. This variable should be visible once you pasted the script in step 5. If not, confirm that {[huntress_orgkey]} exists between the quotes on line 48 as shown below:
   Note: If correctly typed in, you should see the variable highlighted within the script, and it will appear in the "Variables" input bar above the Script Editor. They are depicted in green above. 

9. Finally, click the "Create" button in the lower-left corner of the "Create Script" window.

Deploy Agent via Atera

1. If deploying to multiple devices, we recommend you navigate to "Customers," "<customer name>," then "Devices" tab to deploy Huntress to a specific customer.
2. Once in the Devices tab, click on the endpoints you wish to deploy Huntress too, and click the "Run Script" icon.
3. In the "Run Script on Devices" dialog, be sure to select an appropriate "Automation Expiration" option and then click the "Next" button.
   (Note: The default Automation Expiration policy will skip offline agents, and you will need to manually re-queue them when they are online.)
4. In the next dialog you will need to specify the Organization Key to be used within Huntress. In almost all cases this is the name of your end customer. Once you have this specified, click the "Run Script" button. 
   
   
   If they have not previously had Huntress agents installed, you can simply type out their customer name exactly as you'd like it to appear in the customer portal, and we will create a new entry for them. If you have previously deployed Huntress agents to this organization, we recommend you click the "Organizations" tab in the Huntress portal and use the "Organization Key" in this field to prevent duplicate agent creation. (If for any reason you experience duplicate organization creation, you can move the agents using these instructions.)

   

5. You should receive a pop-up like the below indicating the job has been queued.
6. When you view this report, you can drill down to the individual endpoint to see the script's outcome. Click on the arrow to the left of the Customer Name and then the information icon to the status details' right to see the logs.
7. The log should contain troubleshooting information if necessary, but in our below example the agent was successfully installed.