Alan Siu's Blog

Tag: munki

  • Using an Outset boot-every script to add default applications via Munki

    In Bash script to add optional installs for Munki, I introduced a script that uses PlistBuddy to add optional install items to the client machine’s SelfServeManifest. I thought at first I could use that as a boot-once script for Outset, but it seemed the script ran too early (actual first boot) and then didn’t actually…

  • When an AutoPkg recipe fails to import a .dmg

    If you ever have an AutoPkg recipe that seems to be working fine for weeks or even months and then suddenly fails with a message like this one: Error in local.munki.FileZilla: Processor: MunkiImporter: Error: creating pkginfo for /Users/USERNAME/Library/AutoPkg/Cache/local.munki.FileZilla/FileZilla.dmg failed: Could not mount /Users/USERNAME/Library/AutoPkg/Cache/local.munki.FileZilla/FileZilla.dmg! (doesn’t have to be FileZilla—could be anything), you may not see the…

  • Using Munki to rename computers based on manifest display name, user, or notes

    There may be some Mac admins who don’t really care that much about computer names. After all, especially if the computer isn’t joined to the domain (many of our machines are not), what does it matter? It’s the name that will show up in Sharing or in the Terminal.app few users use. If you do…

  • Capturing new FileMaker Pro updates for macOS

    For older FileMaker Pro versions, there used to be downloadable updates on the FileMaker website, but starting with FileMaker Pro 15, they decided to have FileMaker updates on macOS go through FileMaker itself: As you can see here, they expect your user to have admin privileges. If you’re managing Macs (through Munki, for example), you…

  • Distributing Inspiration using Munki

    If you have a volume license and want to distribute Inspiration to your Munki clients, just activate Inspiration on one Mac and then import the activated Inspiration.app bundle into Munki. That’s it.

  • Skipping Apple updates in Managed Software Center manual checks

    Why would you want to selectively disable Apple software updates? Munki allows you to change a preference on client machines to check for and install Apple software updates. This is pretty cool. It means I can bundle Apple software updates and third-party software updates together for my users. But sometimes, it’s a little frustrating when…

  • Anatomy of a no-image workflow

    For some background on what a no-image approach to deployment is and its benefits, read Thick imaging, thin imaging, and no imaging macOS and “BUILDING” 2015 MACS. I tried a few approaches to no-imaging never-booted Macs, and I’m presenting here a way that worked for me, but you may very well have success with the…

  • Changing client computer names using a Munki nopkg

    In Another opinionated guide to Munki manifests, I said one of the benefits of having no ClientIdentifier and using serial numbers as manifests was not having to manually change preferences on the machine if you repurpose it. What if you want the machine name to change, though? It used to be something like Basketball01, and…

  • Extracting Adobe CC icons for Munki

    Generally, Munki has no problems extracting icons from .app or .pkg items it imports. Adobe makes its installers a bit annoying to get icons out of, so when you import an Adobe CC item into Munki and try to get the icon out, you’ll get this instead: Attempt to create a product icon? [y/n] y…

  • Scripting manifest creation in Munki

    If you’re new to Munki, you probably have an entire fleet of Macs you have to manage. It could be hundreds, thousands, or tens of thousands. You’re not going to enroll those all by hand, are you? But please be intentional about how you structure things. Before you run off scripting, read Another opinionated guide…

  • Another opinionated guide to Munki manifests

    Why this guide? The setup I would recommend What are the benefits of this approach? Bulk-creating manifests from serial numbers Switching to serial numbers from a different setup Subfolders for included manifests And then, going forward? Why this guide? When I first started using Munki, all the terminology was a bit overwhelming to me, even…

  • Not bothering teachers with Managed Software Center notifications during the school day

    This is a sequel to Keeping up to date using Munki without bothering users, which discussed a few approaches to not bothering users with Managed Software Center updates. I’d tried controlling it with rescheduling the launch daemon, which works well for desktops, which are plugged in and can be scheduled to be on at specific…

  • AutoPkg and Munki with UnRarX

    AutoPkg and Munki are a great combination to keep client machines updated with the latest versions of software. UnRarX (at least as of this writing) has kind of a funky situation with AutoPkg, though. The AutoPkg download recipe is currently downloading the beta of 2.2 instead of the final release of 2.2. What makes this…

  • MathType, Microsoft Office, and Munki

    Joshua D. Miller has a great walkthrough on how to deploy MathType using Munki. Just something to keep in mind—MathType works fine in El Capitan… just not with Microsoft Office 2016 (you will not be able to edit formulas, at least as of the writing of this blog post), so if you use MathType, stay…

  • Force removing Printer Generator printers

    Nick McSpadden has a wonderful project called Printer Generator that generates nopkg printer items for Munki. I have a fork of Nick’s project that has a few tweaks. Both of our projects really focus on seeing if a printer is installed with certain settings (name, location, IP address, make and model). But what if your…