This article describes Miradore's application blacklist and whitelist configuration profiles for Android Samsung devices.
Requirements
- Available for Enterprise Plan customers.
- Application blacklisting and whitelisting requires Miradore's Android client version 2.2.9 or newer.
- Application black/whitelisting also requires a Samsung SAFE enabled device with Android version 4.2 or newer.
What does application blacklisting or whitelisting mean?
Application blacklisting means that the defined applications cannot be installed to a target device. If a blacklisted application is already installed, it is blocked and cannot be started.
Application whitelisting means that all applications, except the ones explicitly defined, are blocked. The end user can only install or use those applications that have explicitly been defined.
NOTE: You cannot blacklist or whitelist system applications, or applications that have been pre-installed on the device by the manufacturer.
How to deploy an application blacklist or whitelist configuration to a device
First you need to create a new configuration profile and define the affected applications. The process of creating application blacklist and whitelist configurations is identical, so we will only use the blacklist configuration as an example.
Start by navigating to Mobile management > Configuration profiles and creating an application blacklist configuration for Android. See Creating a configuration profile for more details. When creating the profile you have to define the affected applications. Applications are identified by application specific package names. To find the package name of an application, open a browser and find that application from Google Play. The package name can then be copied from the page URL. For example, the URL for Angry Birds is https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rovio.angrybirds. To add Angry Birds to your new profile, copy com.rovio.angrybirds from the URL and paste it to the input box and then press add. You can add as many applications as you want. When you've added all the applications you want, press Next.
Once the blacklist configuration profile has been created, administrators can deploy it to all supported Android devices in your Miradore site. See more in Deploying a configuration profile for further information. After the profile has been successfully deployed, the defined applications can no longer be used or installed.
This is what happens when the user tries to install a blacklisted application or an application that is not whitelisted and a whitelist policy is active. A notification is shown informing the user that there is a policy in place that restricts the installation of the application. A somewhat cryptic -110 error dialog might also be shown.
Limitations
You cannot have blacklists and whitelists active at the same time. If you deploy a whitelist policy to a device that already has active blacklist policies in place, the blacklist policies will be removed and only the new whitelist policy remains active. The same thing happens when you deploy a blacklist policy to a device that has active whitelist policies in place. You can however, have multiple restriction policies active as long as they are of the same type.
Viewing active restrictions
Blacklisted and whitelisted applications are collected as part of the device inventory. To view which restrictions are currently active on a device, open the device form and go to the Inventory tab. Active restrictions can be seen in the Application restrictions table.
How to disable application blacklist/whitelist configurations
Application blacklists and whitelists can be disabled by simply deleting the deployed configuration profile from the device. This can be done by opening the device page and clicking the trashcan icon in the Configuration profiles table. See Removing deployed configuration profiles for further information.
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