Manage Chromebooks

Knox Manage provides you the ability to manage your fleet of Chromebooks and their installed Chrome OS apps. Unlike with Android devices, KM does not directly interact with Chromebooks through an agent on the Chromebook itself. KM instead interfaces with the Google Admin console, which does the intermediary work of enrolling a Chromebook and setting its policies. Communication between Chromebooks and the Google Admin console is enabled by native technologies on Chrome OS.

Chrome OS management overview

Chrome OS and Chromebook management on KM relies on a link between the managed services on the Google Admin console and the KM console. Due to this fact, there are some important differences you should keep in mind when managing Chrome OS and Chromebooks compared to the other supported OSs on KM:

• Automatic syncing — Organizations, users, and devices are synced from the Google Admin console. You cannot create new organizations or users from the KM console.
• Organization-based deployment — Devices can only be assigned to organizations. Groups are not supported.
• Organization-based profiles — Each organization has an automatically-generated profile associated with it. To set policies for deployments, you must edit the associated profile. You cannot create additional profiles.
• User-based enrollment — Each user account is associated with a Chromebook.

Set up Chromebook management

Before you can begin managing Chromebooks, you must set up your Google Admin Console and KM:

1. First, you need to upgrade your Chrome license. Depending on which license you have, purchase the Chrome Enterprise Upgrade or Chrome Education Upgrade from the Google Admin Console.
2. Once upgraded, you need to set up an organization and users. On the Google Admin console, create an organization and add your users.
3. Lastly, register the Google admin account with KM:
   1. On the KM console, go to Setting > Chrome OS > Sign in with Google. The Google accounts page opens.
   2. Log in to the Google account.
   3. Select all permissions, then click Continue. The browser returns you to the KM console. The Google Authorization Code field is now filled in.

      

   4. Enter the same account for the Google Admin Email Address, then click Authorize.

      

See also

• Enroll a Chromebook
• Chrome OS profiles
• Add Chrome OS apps
• Assign Chrome OS apps