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Adobe Admin Console Packages – 3.0

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Only 3 months ago, we announced Adobe Admin Console Packages – 2.0. Well, there have since been some changes which have required a rewrite and as new version, hence 3.0.

The primary changes are:

  • The Adobe installers are now installed locally, with the locally installed application being queried to get the required metadata.
  • Due to the above, the script AdobeAdminConsolePackagesImporter.py, now needs to be run under sudo.
  • Additionally, two new flags have been added to AdobeAdminConsolePackagesImporter.py:
    • –extract-icons: Extracts the applications icon to the recipes %RECIPE_CACHE_DIR%
    • –uninstall: Uninstalls the applications from the Mac running AdobeAdminConsolePackagesImporter.py, one the have been processed for the required metadata.
  • With macOS 15 no longer supporting bundle packages, bundle package support has been removed.
  • Recipes for 2021 and 2022 titles have been removed.

For more details on the why, see below. Otherwise head over to the ReadMe.

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Adobe Admin Console Packages – 2.0

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In June 2023, Adobe announced on that flat packages were available via the Adobe Admin Console. However, at the time these were limited to templates which would include one or more titles chosen by Adobe. Prior to this all macOS packages created by the Adobe Admin Console were bundle packages.

Fast forward to April 2024, and Adobe announced that the Adobe Admin Console now defaults to creating flat packages for macOS and the content of these packages are defined by the admin within the Adobe Admin Console.

Why does this matter? Well, bundle packages were deprecated in macOS 14.4 and if you’re testing macOS Sequoia (and you really should be), you’ll find that bundle packages are no longer supported.

A new version of our Adobe Admin Console Packages recipes and processor have been released, which add flat package support, moves the uninstall step to a script and if you import a bundle package it will set the maximum OS to 14.99. For full details, please see the readme.

If you want to know more about our Adobe Admin Console Packages recipes, please see the prior post here.

Apple platform deployment – Accessing the latest version when your locale is neither en-ca or en-us

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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.

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Apple Platform Deployment – Now available in a locale near you!

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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)

macOS Ventura and bypassing the new SystemPolicyAppBundles privacy policy control

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https://developer.apple.com/documentation/devicemanagement/
privacypreferencespolicycontrol/services

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.

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Farewell macOS Server

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacOS_Server

Today, 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
As of April 21, 2022, Apple has discontinued new signups for Fleetsmith.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT213238

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!

Apple Business Manager and Apple School Manager Terms Update – March 31, 2022

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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

macOS Monterey 12.3 will remove Python 2.7 (/usr/bin/python)

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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.

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Maintenance completed!

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Hopefully, all 229 posts from the past eleven years and two months have all been sorted.

All the code examples have been moved to gists from repos, and they will now show inline natively.

There was also still some http:// items from way back when this blog was just http://, which have been moved to https.

And, there was some images missing.. for $reasons.

I’ve also rejigged some backend stuff and removed some older plugins.

So, a fair bit or maintenance over the past 11 days. Let me know if any issues encountered.

Lastly, once more, thanks to @SudarMuthu for the WP Github Gist plugin which served this blog so well.

Where did the code examples go? Well…

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A few folks have noticed that the code examples have disappeared from my posts, well.. I was using a plugin called WP Github Gist to display the code as this blog has been around since before WordPress added native support for Gists.

However, this plugin no longer works.

But, don’t panic!! Things will come back, I just need to manually update the 229 posts here (over 11 years worth), to use Gists.

One of this things I most liked about WP Github Gist and will miss, was the fact that I could link to lines within a file within a GitHub repo and has them displayed. Instead of creating a gist per post (as an example, this file was used across a number of posts).

So, there is some work for me to do.

If you’re looking at a post, and are missing the content, please message me on Slack or Twitter.

No SLA mind, but I’ll look to update the posts requested over the older ones.

And lastly, thanks to @SudarMuthu for the WP Github Gist plugin which served this blog so well.