Apple Configurator

Copy OS Updates Between Apple Configurator Machines

One of the things that is awesome and sometimes frustrating about Apple Configurator is that when you do certain tasks, you end up updating the OS on devices. The reason this is awesome is that it allows you to centralize operations. The reason this can be frustrating is that if you’re on a limited bandwidth connection, you may find that you can’t do very basic tasks before downloading a large OS update. And if you’ve got a bunch of Apple Configurator workstations, and you are running a training session, this can get infinitely more annoying.

In these types of lab environments, you’re in luck. If you have an ipsw (the iOS OS update file), you can copy the file from ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.configurator/Data/Library/Caches/com.apple.configurator/Firmware/ onto another machine. To copy them onto a USB drive called bananarama for example, use the following command:

cp -R ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.configurator/Data/Library/Caches/com.apple.configurator/Firmware/ /Volumes/bananarama/ipsws/

And once you’ve moved that drive, to then copy them back:

cp -R /Volumes/bananarama/ipsws/ ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.configurator/Data/Library/Caches/com.apple.configurator/Firmware/