Unwanted Knox E-FOTA device enrollments and license consumption

Environment

Knox E-FOTA

Overview

Some users experience issues with their Knox E-FOTA client app automatically installing on devices not intended for Knox E-FOTA through out-of-box-experience (OOBE).

With the Knox E-FOTA 22.05 release, there’s a feature enhancement to license auto-assignment and enrollment experiences. These improvements consist of:

• Pre-assigning devices using valid campaigns. When valid campaigns are implemented, only the devices enrolled through the Knox Reseller Portal with active campaigns participate in OOBE upon first-time kitting or factory reset.

• Additional license key verifications before allowing OOBE. This checks the existence of a valid license key (such as unexpired Knox E-FOTA or Knox Suite licenses).

This article provides insights about the feature improvements and how to prevent unwanted device enrollments and license consumption in Knox E-FOTA.

Cause

During OOBE, the Knox E-FOTA client app installs on devices not intended to be managed by Knox E-FOTA.

When you pre-load a device in Knox E-FOTA, either through the Knox Reseller Portal, a CSV file, or syncing through an EMM, Knox E-FOTA treats the device as a Knox E-FOTA participant and places it in Operation State: Approved. This means that the device is ready for license auto-assignment and enrollment once the client app installs and launches for the first time.

This can cause the Knox E-FOTA client app to install on devices not intended to be managed by Knox E-FOTA when devices are pre-loaded through the Knox Reseller Portal with Auto approve enabled.

Pre-loaded devices automatically enrolled in bulk example

Below is an example scenario of a reseller bulk uploading pre-loaded devices through the Knox Reseller Portal:

• On the Manage reseller preferences page, Auto approve is enabled. As a result, all of the reseller-uploaded devices are eligible to use Knox E-FOTA.

• There are situations where some of the reseller-uploaded devices shouldn’t be enrolled in Knox E-FOTA. If this is the case, refer to Manage devices to explicitly delete these devices from the Knox E-FOTA console. Otherwise, the devices are enrolled in Knox E-FOTA during the first time out-of-the-box or future factory reset configuration by the following sequence of events:

  1. The device completes the initial power-up and set-up wizard configuration workflow.
  2. If enabled by Knox Mobile Enrollment, the device automatically enrolls to an EMM.
  3. The Knox E-FOTA client app automatically installs and enrolls after EMM enrollment.

How to create a campaign for OOBE or factory-reset client installation

Assign the target devices to a campaign before installing the Knox E-FOTA client app through OOBE or factory reset. Learn how to Create and assign a campaign.

When you enable auto-enrollment, we recommend creating a simple campaign that doesn’t have any device and firmware configurations. By doing so, there’s no chance of accidental campaign updates taking place.

How to assign a campaign

There are two ways to assign a campaign:

1. Directly assign a campaign to your devices.
2. Automatically assign a campaign to all devices uploaded by a reseller.

Assign the campaign to the devices directly

To assign a campaign:

1. On the Knox E-FOTA console, go to Devices and select the devices to assign the campaign to.

2. Click ACTIONS > Assign campaign.

3. Select the campaign you’ve created and click ASSIGN.

Automatically assign the campaign to all the devices by Reseller upon uploads

If you need to enable auto-installation only on certain uploaded devices, don’t use this option.

All the devices that are uploaded by a reseller can install the Knox E-FOTA client app automatically by enabling Auto approve. Follow the steps below:

1. On the Knox E-FOTA console, click Resellers and select the Reseller name.

2. Click to enable Auto approve, then select the desired campaign

3. Click SAVE.

4. The desired campaign you’ve created is assigned to all devices uploaded by this reseller.

Additional information

To learn more about Knox E-FOTA, refer to the Knox E-FOTA guide.