Oracle Java SE now requires a license subscription In July 2018, Oracle announced that the licensing for Oracle Java SE (Standard Edition) would change going forward. Commercial (including academic) users need to buy into a Java SE Subscription. The new Oracle Technology Network License Agreement for Oracle Java SE is...
Back in March 2018, I wrote a blog post about startosinstall --eraseinstall, which had been introduced that day with macOS 10.13.4. This allows us to reinstall macOS directly on any Mac running 10.13.4 or greater and with an APFS filesystem. Since Mojave was released, all systems are running APFS, so...
Here is a script to send notifications to a Slack channel when a server’s main partition size exceeds a safe threshold. It is tested on Red Hat 7 and macOS Mojave. Requirements Set up an incoming webhook for a Slack channel. Install the python requests module on the server or...
Here is a quick bash script to create backups of MySQL databases on a daily, weekly and monthly basis using mysqldump. It maintains a specified number of each backup interval before deleting them to prevent the server filling up to infinity with backups. The script is designed to take a...
This is a quick and kind of obvious one, but a quick search did not find it documented. If your common method of receiving IT help requests is via Email, you might want your clients to be able to click a button to send to the correct address with an...
As is common around this time of year, Apple have begun to push out notifications to logged-in Mac users, inviting them to upgrade to the latest version of macOS. This time, of course, it’s 10.14 Mojave. How is the notification pushed to users? The notification is itself distributed by Apple’s...
AutoPkg recipes are plist files, a form of XML. Even the most simple of Autopkg recipes are somewhat voluminous. For example, here is pkg recipe that just does one thing, package up an app within a dmg using the AppPkgCreator processor: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN"...
The Jamf Pro “classic” REST API uses basic authentication, which requires credentials in the form of a username and password. When making API calls in a script using curl, the username and password is therefore passed in plain text. Jamf Pro’s Users & Groups Interface allows you to restrict what...
Today I gave a presentation at the Jamf Nation Roadshow in Munich. The presentation is entitled “ETH Zurich and Jamf Pro”, and is an introduction to ETH Zurich, and how we have integrated Jamf Pro into our Mac management service over the past year. The presentation concentrates on our reliance...
Many Mac admins have been anticipating an “Erase All Contents And Settings” option for macOS, to emulate that available on iOS. Apple have taken a big step further towards that goal in macOS 10.13.4. startosinstall –eraseinstall The startosinstall command is included in the Install macOS High Sierra.app (and, in fact,...
