Persistent Agent on macOS

To take advantage of the Agent Security some settings must be configured on the host. Settings for Mac OS X hosts are configured in Preferences. At this time we do not have a recommendation for a tool to set preferences.

Security settings

The table below outlines settings that can be configured for Agent Security.

Setting	Options
Allowed Ciphers and Authentication Schemes	Indicates the cipher and authentication schemes that can be used.
CA Trust Length/ Depth	Indicates how deep a chain of certificates to allow between the server's certificate and the certificate's Central Authority.
CA File path	The absolute path to a file containing root and intermediate CA certificates in PEM format.
Security	Indicates whether security is enabled or disabled. Note: This option is no longer available with agent 5.3 and greater. Security is always enabled.
Home Server	The fully qualified hostname of the default server with which the agent should communicate. If this server is not set, it is automatically discovered using Server Discovery. On upgrade, this is populated by the contents of ServerIP.
Allowed Servers	In large environments there may be more than one set of FortiNAC servers. If roaming between servers is limited, list the FQDNs of the FortiNAC Application Server or FortiNAC Servers with which the agent can communicate.
Restrict Roaming	If enabled, the agent communicates only with its Home Server and servers listed under Allowed Servers. If disabled, the agent searches for additional servers when the home server is unavailable.
maxConnectInterval	The maximum number of seconds between attempts to connect to FortiNAC. Data Type: Integer Default: 960
Last Connected Server	Server that the agent last connected to and with which the agent always attempts to communicate first. Protocol configuration change requests are honored only when they are received from this server. If this server is not set, it is automatically discovered using Server Discovery.
Discover Servers, Priority, and Ports	Enable or Disable the Agent Discovery Features. Requires Persistent Agent 5.3.0 or newer.

Preferences

The table below shows the modifications that need to be made to the host's Preferences. If you use a tool other than GPO, you must make sure to set the appropriate keys on each host.

Value	Data
allowedServers	Comma-separated list of fully qualified hostnames with the agent can communicate. If restrict roaming is enabled, the agent is limited to this list. The home server does not need to be included in this list (for example, a.example.com, b.example.com, c.example.com). Agents 10.7 and above: Port can also be specified (<Fully qualified hostname>:<port>). The default port if not specified is 4568. Example: a.example.com:9001, b.example.com:4568, c.example.com:4985 Data Type: String Default: Empty
homeServer	The fully qualified hostname of the default server with which the agent should communicate. Example: a.example.com Agents 10.7 and above: Port can also be specified (<Fully qualified hostname>:<port>). The default port if not specified is 4568. Example: a.example.com:9001 Data Type: String Default: Empty
restrictRoaming	0: Do not restrict roaming. Allow agent to communicate with any server. 1: Restrict roaming to the home server and the allowed servers list. Data Type: Integer Default: 0
securityEnabled	0: Disable Agent Security. 1: Enable Agent Security Data Type: Integer Default: 1 Agent 5.3 and greater: Security is always enabled.
ServerIP	The fully qualified hostname to which the agent should communicate. Data Type: String Default: ns8200
ShowIcon	0: Do not show the tray icon. 1: Show the tray icon. Default: Not Configured (Tray icon displayed) If both com.bradfordnetworks.bndaemon and com.bradfordnetworks.bndaemon.policy are configured on the system, the com.bradfordnetworks.bndaemon.policy configuration takes precedence over the com.bradfordnetworks.bndaemon configuration.
maxConnectInterval	The maximum number of seconds between attempts to connect to FortiNAC. Data Type: Integer Default: 960
lastConnectedServer	The last server that the Agent successfully connected to. This will be automatically populated by the agent upon successfully connection to a server discovered through SRV records, or from homeServer, or allowedServers list. This value will remain unchanged until the lastConnectedServer is unreachable by the agent and the agent has connected to another server. Data Type: String Default: Empty
discoveryEnabled	Enable or Disable Discovery via SRV. The agent will search for SRV Records to prioritize servers and override default ports. If connections to servers are not limited, agents will connect to the discovered server names as well. 0: Disable Discovery. 1: Enable Discovery Data Type: Integer Default: 1

There are manual commands that can be used to modify the Preferences as follows:

1. On the macOS host, navigate to a command prompt (Terminal).

2. Before editing the preferences, it is recommended that you unload the launchDaemon plist. Type the following:

   sudo launchctl unload /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.bradfordnetworks.agent.plist

3. To read the configuration, type the following:

   sudo defaults read /Library/Preferences/com.bradfordnetworks.bndaemon

4. To write configuration values use the table above for the value names and type a command similar to the following:

   sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.bradfordnetworks.bndaemon homeServer -string qa225.bradfordnetworks.com

   In the example above, homeServer is the value name, -string is the data type, qa225.bradfordnetworks is the data or setting that should be added to Preferences.

5. While some elements require a string data value, others require an integer data value. For these elements, type a command similar to the following:

   sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.bradfordnetworks.bndaemon restrictRoaming -int 1

   In the example above, restrictRoaming is the value name, -int is the value data type and 1 is the setting added to the value. In this case 1 is equal to enabled and 0 is disabled.

6. To reload the launchDaemon plist, type the following:

   sudo launchctl load /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.bradfordnetworks.agent.plist