TL;DR – To get the latest version of Apple platform deployment which has been updated as per the above when your locale is neither en-ca or en-us, go to: https://support.apple.com/en-ca/guide/deployment/welcome/web
More details on this below.
Continue reading
Next week at macad.uk 2023 I’m revisiting a talk which I gave last November at a dataJAR Tech Series event, and I just realised that I hadn’t posted the talk here.
So this post addresses the oversight!
You can find my talk and it’s slides, as well as the other talks from the days dataJAR Tech Series event here.
Not only was I on a panel at JNUC 2022, but I also gave a talk in person too titled: JNUC2022 : On Bootstrap Tokens, Secure Tokens, and Volume Ownership.
Despite me giving this talk in person, Jamf have published the prior recorded remote version (with the majority of talks recorded prior due to JNUC2022‘s hybrid nature).
One difference between this and the panel recording is that this one is COVID-19 free!
See below for a link to the video, the GitHub repo with all of the links and lastly a link to the JNUC2022 playlist.
Continue reading
For JNUC 2022, I was invited onto a panel to discuss patch management solutions for Jamf Pro once again.
This followed a similar format to the 2021 panel. Not only did this years panel include myself alongside Armin Briegel, Ryan Ball and Sam Weiss, but we were joined this time by Isaac Ordonez as well.
Sadly, for the recording, I was a little unwell and the following day tested positive for COVID-19. So, if I sound a little off, that’s why.
See below for a link to the panels video, as well as links to the JNUC 2022 YouTube playlist.
Continue reading
The Apple Deployment Guide (https://support.apple.com/guide/deployment/welcome/web) is always updated soon after a major macOS release. However, it can take a couple of weeks for it to become available in many locales.
This year has been no exception, but as of today the Apple Deployment Guide (https://support.apple.com/guide/deployment/welcome/web) should now be available to all locales (that link should direct to your locale).
Prior to today, when accessing https://support.apple.com/guide/deployment/welcome/web from outside Canada and the US, folks would be redirected to their locales version of the guide, which was dated June 2022.
Even trying https://support.apple.com/en-us/guide/deployment/welcome/web would redirect folks to their locales version of the guide.
The one exception was is the en-CA locale (https://support.apple.com/en-ca/guide/deployment/welcome/web), which doesn’t seem to redirect. And as such, folks outside Canada and the US have been accessing the guide via that URL.
Regardless, its welcome to have the documentation available to all.
And, if so inclined, why not file feedback with Apple along the lines of what I filed below. So those of us outside Canada and the US are not left out in the cold for a couple of weeks next time (maybe):
FB11718598 (When a locales documentation isn’t available, redirect to en-US)
With every macOS release since macOS Mojave, Apple have added more privacy policy controls (PPPC) for Admins to manage via MDM. And todays release of macOS Ventura, is no different, with two new PPPC which coming with macOS Ventura:
Managed Login Items are something which will I expect will be widely blogged about, but SystemPolicyAppBundles might not be as to trigger this new PPPC requires a narrow path to be trodden and even then, can be bypassed.
The below details the path required to trigger this new PPPC, and how to bypass.
Continue readingToday, Apple published https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208312, which states:
As of April 21, 2022, Apple has discontinued macOS Server. Existing macOS Server customers can continue to download and use the app with macOS Monterey.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208312
As someone that cut my teeth with OSX Server on 10.3 (Panther), I’d like to say farewell old friend.
In addition, Apple have posted a document on choosing and MDM solution and as well have another document advising that:
Apple will discontinue Fleetsmith service on October 21, 2022
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT213238
As of April 21, 2022, Apple has discontinued new signups for Fleetsmith.
If you’re looking for a replacement for either Profile Manager or Fleetsmith, why not head over to the MacAdmins.org Slack, or reach out to folks like.. oh, I dunno.. dataJAR 🙂
Anyways, farewell macOS Server!
As forewarned by Apple a week ago, the Business Manager and School Manager Terms have been updated today.
I’ve covered this a few times, but essentially an AxM Administrator for your organisation will need to agree to the new terms.
Also the AxM Administrator(s) for your organisation should have the above email (or it’s School Manager equivalent).
In the meantime, until terms are accepted:
Devices assigned to a Mobile Device Management (MDM) server in Apple School Manager or Apple Business Manager won’t be affected. If you erase all content and settings on a device, the device will still be assigned to the same MDM server, and the same settings will be applied during setup.
https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT203063
For several years I’ve been involved in methods to deal with Adobe Creative Cloud packages via AutoPkg.
Well, due to changes to the packages contents I’ve created yet another method (which is hopefully the last one).
Details on this method can be found below, as well as a history of the various methods employed over the years.
Continue reading
Hot on the heels of macOS Monterey 12.2, Apple have publicly released the macOS Monterey 12.3 Beta Release Notes.
Despite this being a point release, there are a few breaking changes.
The kernels for both the Dropbox Desktop Application and Microsoft OneDrive are called out as deprecated in the release notes, and as such both have updates and/or changes coming to overcome this change.
However, the more impactful change is the removal of Python 2 (/usr/bin/python).
This has a number of ramifications, and is really a very large change to drop in a point release.
See below for more details on this, and how it will likely affect every Mac Admin.
Continue reading
