The longer you use AutoPkg without cleaning up the Cache folder, the more cruft you’re going to get. Much of the cruft is older downloads and any packages generated. Depending on your setup, you may be able to just delete the entire Cache folder periodically, or even after every run....
Modern System Extensions on macOS are generally installed via an application bundle. They can be bundled within the application with which they are associated (for example Microsoft Defender ATP), or in specific applications along side the main app that deliver the system extension (examples include Sophos Anti-Virus and Cisco AnyConnect)....
I was honoured to present at the Texas Apple Admins Virtual Meetup yesterday, 30 March 2021, to talk about YAML-formatted AutoPkg recipes. The presentation was not be recorded live, but I have recorded it separately, and it is available here: The slides with presenter notes are also be available here,...
Back in 2018, I published a blog post about how you can write AutoPkg recipes in yaml format, and convert them to plist-format to run them. See Writing AutoPkg recipes and other plist-formatted files in yaml. I’ve been writing all my recipes in yaml format since then. plist and yaml...
To get Adobe Creative Cloud Desktop application to work on an Apple Silicon Mac, Adobe have provided a patch for their latest installers. The current version of Adobe Creative Cloud that is downloadable from Adobe’s admin console (if you have access) at the time of writing is 5.3.2.471. The instructions...
My first post for a few months, and apologies in advance as it’s a long one… I’ve made a new set of AutoPkg processors for importing packages to Jamf Pro. After some testing, I have now begun writing and using new recipes to replace the .jss recipes we have been...
One of the major limitations of Jamf Pro in comparison to Munki when it comes to software deployment is the lack of ability to compare version strings between what is installed on a Mac client and what is available in the software repository. Munki can determine whether the installed version...
I had a rude awakening during an upgrade process, where I decided to upgrade my Test and Prod AutoPkg Runner Mac minis from Mojave to Catalina. Though my AutoPkg needs are relatively simple and standard, I’ve been using a locally installed Jenkins service on both computers to run AutoPkg, mainly...
Since OS X 10.11, OS X / macOS installer applications have had the startosinstall command line tool bundled in it. My presentation at the Texas Apple Admins Virtual Meetup last month went into the history of the command, and the available command line options. The currently documented options are as...
I came across an interesting phenomenon regarding Automated Device Enrollment (DEP) and macOS’s Setup Assistant that I hadn’t considered before, while investigating a problem on some managed Mac computers. I’m not sure if it’s widely known or not, but since I didn’t know it, perhaps others are also not aware....
