Alan Siu's Blog

Tag: outset

  • Allowing Outset-run scripts to have access to user folders

    Because of TCC/PPPC, which Apple introduced in macOS 10.14, scripts and applications have to ask for permissions to do certain things, especially things like reading user home directory files. If you have an Outset login script that tries to access something in the home directory, you may find in the ~/Library/Logs/outset.log that you get a…

  • Use docklib to manage macOS docks

    docklib instead of dockutil I have a few posts about using dockutil to manage the macOS dock. dockutil is still a valid and working project, but I’m starting to migrate my scripts to docklib instead. Installing docklib The installation instructions for docklib say you can put the docklib.py file in the same directory as the…

  • Updating MS Office dock icons from 2011 to 2016 using dockutil

    Managing client machines while also giving your users freedom to customize their machines as they want can be a bit tricky. On the one hand, you want to automate things as much as possible so users don’t have to be bothered with too many update prompts and other maintenance nuisances. On the other hand, you…

  • 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…

  • Using Dockutil with Outset to set user Docks on a Mac

    Many people will find Dock Master a good tool to distributing docks to users. If you would prefer to use Dockutil with Outset and a login-once (or login-every) script, you may run into this issue: Items are added but not always removed Workaround #1 kcrawford (developer of Dockutil) has a workaround for this: # Wait…

  • AutoDMG / Outset / Munki bootstrap workflow

    Update December, 2018: Because of the changes that came with Apple’s T2 chips, I wouldn’t recommend the below workflow any more. Instead, I’d recommend a DEP=>MDM=>Munki workflow instead. I wanted to create a workflow that involved pretty much just imaging a new machine with a thin image and then having the image itself pull updates.…

  • Run scripts at logout using Offset

    There is an excellent open source (Apache-licensed) tool called Outset that will run scripts for Mac computers once at boot, every boot, once at login, every login, or on demand. You can add and remove ignored users (users you don’t want to run those scripts for). And all you have to do, once Outset is…

  • Using Outset to deploy scripts to Mac clients

    Why this guide? Okay, this isn’t terribly groundbreaking stuff for seasoned Mac Admins, but for the beginners and intermediates among us, I’m trying to write the layperson’s guide to Outset. What is Outset? Outset is basically a set of launch daemons (to run at boot) and launch agents (to run at user login) that will…