Just a quick one! AutoPkg recipes are Plist files. But they have the suffix .recipe. Most text editors don’t know how to handle this for syntax highlighting, so either open the recipe in plain text (urgh), or take an educated guess and give it XML highlighting. I use GitHub’s Atom...
Here is a single-script installer/updater for AutoPkg and JSSImporter. It’s largely comprised of code extracted from Run-Munki-Run and ultimately Munki In A Box, but there’s no Munki in there any more. What does it do? Installs command line tools if not present (because git is required for AutoPkg) Downloads, installs...
I recently ran into a problem with a DeployStudio NetBoot image which required a system setting to be changed. The DeployStudio NBI creation process is a somewhat closed box, normally done using the DeployStudio Assistant application, which only allows certain settings to be manipulated. @MagerValp made the build process scriptable...
This post describes yet another way of quickly building a test environment for evaluating Munki, AutoPkg and associated tools, and testing the deployment of packages. Munki and AutoPkg are mature tools for automated software deployment and update maintenance. Both are are CLI-based tools which are simple to set up. AutoPkg...
Following on from my post yesterday, in which I describe a method of creating an application using Automator to run shell scripts that require administrator privileges (sudo), I have now figured out how to achieve the same thing with AppleScript editor, with the improvement that the system dialog is used...
The Mac users I support have admin rights, and I have recently had cause to provide end users with an easy way to run various shell commands which require admin rights (via sudo). My aim was not to have to repeatedly send support emails or provide articles which require users...
François Tiffreau-Levaux (@ftiff)’s SplashBuddy application (formerly CasperSplash) is an Application created using Swift, designed to be used when staging a DEP Mac using JAMF Pro (formerly Casper). It can equally used to onboard User-Initiated Enrollments. Current in 1.0 release candidate phase, it is fully functional, and relatively easy to set...
I was recently asked to look at archiving old E-Mails from IMAP accounts so that the accounts could be deleted without losing the emails. Surprisingly, the options I found were limited: Use a Mail client such as Thunderbird. Configure the IMAP account you wish to archive, and then drag messages...
Apple today made an error with a security update that could have a high IT support cost. As reported in MacRumors Forums, “Software update 031-51913”, designed to block some incompatible Kernel Extensions, also renders certain Mac models unable to connect to the Internet via Ethernet ports, as the ports become...
In this post I summarise what version control is, and why to add it to your Mac managament toolset. I then look at how to manage a Git-enabled Munki repository, and list other files associated with Mac management that you should consider version controlling. Why use version control? Version control...