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Semi-automating profile installation in Big Sur
It’s pretty well known among Mac admins that, starting with Big Sur (macOS 11), Apple has removed the ability for the profiles command to silently install .mobileconfig profiles. Apple wants you to use an MDM to deliver profiles silently… or have users themselves manually install profiles. If you try to install them silently the old […]
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If you can log in and use sudo but can’t unlock Sys Pref prefpanes in Big Sur
I and at least one other person on the MacAdmins Slack saw situations in which a known working password (can log into the computer, can use sudo to escalate privileges in the terminal) on an admin account is not working in System Preferences to unlock a prefpane. Special thanks to owen on the MacAdmins Slack […]
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Rolling back versions in Munki and using blocking applications arrays
Downgrading software in Munki can be a bit tricky. One of the tricks you can use is to remove the higher version number from your Munki repo, and replace an .app bundle–based installs array with a binary-based one. So, after removing the higher version from your repo, replacing the lower version’s pkginfo with something like […]
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Munki can get into a notification loop if root is using the Persian calendar
The Problem At some point, this blog post may be obsolete, because I’m hoping this will be fixed soon, but in the meantime, I’ve filed an issue on GitHub: Using Persian calendar results in notification loop at every next Munki run If you have users who claim to see notifications multiple times a day, even […]
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Installing Rosetta 2 on M1 Apple Silicon Macs (why checks matter)
Actual guides This isn’t really a guide to how to install Rosetta 2. There are already much better guides for those: Rich Trouton’s Installing Rosetta 2 on Apple Silicon Macs Graham Gilbert’s Installing Rosetta 2 on Apple Silicon Macs Rich Trouton’s blog post has some checks to make sure the Mac is running at least […]
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How to check the Carbon Black version installed
Update Thanks to Clay Haynes for pointing out you can get the version more easily by running /Applications/VMware\ Carbon\ Black\ EDR.app/Contents/MacOS/CbOsxSensorService -v Back story In Carbon Black 6.3.0 and 7.0.1, it isn’t super obvious how to check for the version installed. For example, if you run defaults read /Applications/VMware\ Carbon\ Black\ EDR.app/Contents/Info.plist, you’ll see CFBundleInfoDictionaryVersion […]
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Scripting changing user icons: dsimport prompts for password in zsh
2 June, 2021 Update Special shoutout to Armin Briegel for pointing out that the zsh version runs just fine if you use a different variable name from USERNAME. I’ve tried it with USERACCOUNT instead, and I’ve confirmed it works fine with zsh. Original Post Apple is moving toward making zsh the default shell instead of […]
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Using installinstallmacos.py to get beta installers
Usually, if you use installinstallmacos.py, you’ll get the already-released installers: # ProductID Version Build Post Date Title 1 001-15219 10.15.5 19F2200 2020-06-15 macOS Catalina 2 001-04366 10.15.4 19E2269 2020-05-04 macOS Catalina 3 061-86291 10.15.3 19D2064 2020-03-23 macOS Catalina 4 041-91758 10.13.6 17G66 2019-10-19 macOS High Sierra 5 001-57224 10.15.7 19H4 2020-10-27 macOS Catalina 6 061-26589 […]
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Updates to the AutoPkgReviewAndRun.py script
3.5 years ago, I created a script to automate running AutoPkg recipes while also verifying trust info and prompting the user to approve or deny any changes. With some prompting from some folks on the #autopkg channel of the MacAdmins Slack, I made a few changes to the script: You can now run the script […]
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Fix for VirtualBox Extension Pack postinstall script hanging in Munki
The problem If you’ve been running the VirtualBoxExtPack.munki.recipe AutoPkg recipe, and you’ve noticed the VirtualBox Extension Pack postinstall script in Munki hanging indefinitely (30 minutes and beyond), it’s because the license hash has changed. The fix According to @jessepeterson (the maintainer of that AutoPkg recipe), the license hash doesn’t change very often, but it did […]