You can export profiles from Apple Configurator or Profile Manager (or some of the 3rd party MDM tools). You can then install profiles by just opening them and installing. Once profiles are installed on a Mac, mdmclient, a binary located in /usr/libexec will process changes such as wiping a system that has been FileVaulted (note you need to FileVault if you want to wipe an OS X Lion client computer). /System/Library/LaunchDaemons and /System/Library/LaunchAgents has a mdmclient daemon and agent respectively that start it up automatically.
To script profile deployment, administrators can add and remove configuration profiles using the new /usr/bin/profiles command. To see all profiles, aggregated, use the profiles command with just the -P option:
/usr/bin/profiles -P
As with managed preferences (and piggy backing on managed preferences for that matter), configuration profiles can be assigned to users or computers. To see just user profiles, use the -L option:
/usr/bin/profiles -L
You can remove all profiles using -D:
/usr/bin/profiles -D
The -I option installs profiles and the -R removes profiles. Use -p to indicate the profile is from a server or -F to indicate it’s source is a file. To remove a profile:
/usr/bin/profiles -R -F /tmp/HawkeyesTrickshot.mobileconfig
To remove one from a server:
/usr/bin/profiles -R -p com.WestCoastAvengers.HawkeyesTrickshot
The following installs HawkeyesTrickshot.mobileconfig from /tmp:
/usr/bin/profiles -I -F /tmp/HawkeyesTrickshot.mobileconfig
If created in Profile Manager:
/usr/bin/profiles -I -p com.WestCoastAvengers.HawkeyesTrickshot
There is a nifty new feature in the profiles command in Yosemite where you can configure profiles to install at the next boot, rather than immediately. Use the -s to define a startup profile and take note that if it fails, the profile will attempt to install at each subsequent reboot until installed. To use the command, simply add a -s then the -F for the profile and the -f to automatically confirm, as follows (and I like to throw in a -v usually for good measure):
profiles -s -F /Profiles/SuperAwesome.mobileconfig -f -v
And that’s it. Nice and easy and you now have profiles that only activate when a computer is started up. As of OS X Yosemite, the dscl command has extensions for dealing with profiles as well. These include the available MCX Profile Extensions:
-profileimport -profiledelete -profilelist [optArgs]
-profileexport
-profilehelp
To list all profiles from an Open Directory object, use -profilelist. To run, follow the dscl command with -u to specify a user, -P to specify the password for the user, then the IP address of the OD server (or name of the AD object), then the profilelist verb, then the relative path. Assuming a username of diradmin for the directory, a password of moonknight and then cedge user:
dscl -u diradmin -P moonknight 192.168.210.201 profilelist /LDAPv3/127.0.0.1/Users/cedge
To delete that information for the given user, swap the profilelist extension with profiledelete:
dscl -u diradmin -P apple 192.168.210.201 profilelist /LDAPv3/127.0.0.1/Users/cedge
If you would rather export all information to a directory called ProfileExports on the root of the drive:
dscl -u diradmin -P moonknight 192.168.210.201 profileexport . all -o /ProfileExports
Note: Provisioning profiles can also be managed, frequently using the lower-case variant of installation and removal (e.g. -i to install, -r to remove, -c to list and -d to delete all provisioning profiles). Provisioning profiles can also come with a -u option to show the uuid. Finally, the -V option verifies a provisioning profile.
In Yosemite we have a few new options, such as -H which shows whether a profile was installed, -z to define a removal password and -o to output a file path for removal information. Also, in Yosemite it seems as though if a configuration profile was pushed to you from MDM, you can’t remove it (fyi, I love having the word fail as a standalone in verbose output):
bash-3.2# profiles -P
_computerlevel[1] attribute: profileIdentifier: 772BED54-5EDF-4987-94B9-654456CF0B9A
_computerlevel[2] attribute: profileIdentifier: 00000000-0000-0000-A000-4A414D460003
_computerlevel[3] attribute: profileIdentifier: C11672D9-9AE2-4F09-B789-70D5678CB397
charlesedge[4] attribute: profileIdentifier: com.krypted.office365.a5f0e328-ea86-11e3-a26c-6476bab5f328
charlesedge[5] attribute: profileIdentifier: odr.krypted.com.ADD7E5A6-8EED-4B11-8470-C56C8DC1E2E6
_computerlevel[6] attribute: profileIdentifier: EE08ABE9-5CB8-48E3-8E02-E46AD0A03783
_computerlevel[7] attribute: profileIdentifier: F3C87B6E-185C-4F28-9BA7-6E02EACA37B1
_computerlevel[8] attribute: profileIdentifier: 24DA416D-093A-4E2E-9E6A-FEAD74B8B0F0
There are 8 configuration profiles installedbash-3.2# profiles -r 772BED54-5EDF-4987-94B9-654456CF0B9A
bash-3.2# profiles -P
_computerlevel[1] attribute: profileIdentifier: F3C87B6E-185C-4F28-9BA7-6E02EACA37B1
_computerlevel[2] attribute: profileIdentifier: EE08ABE9-5CB8-48E3-8E02-E46AD0A03783
_computerlevel[3] attribute: profileIdentifier: 24DA416D-093A-4E2E-9E6A-FEAD74B8B0F0
_computerlevel[4] attribute: profileIdentifier: 00000000-0000-0000-A000-4A414D460003
_computerlevel[5] attribute: profileIdentifier: 772BED54-5EDF-4987-94B9-654456CF0B9A
_computerlevel[6] attribute: profileIdentifier: C11672D9-9AE2-4F09-B789-70D5678CB397
charlesedge[7] attribute: profileIdentifier: odr.krypted.com.ADD7E5A6-8EED-4B11-8470-C56C8DC1E2E6
charlesedge[8] attribute: profileIdentifier: com.krypted.office365.a5f0e328-ea86-11e3-a26c-6476bab5f328
There are 8 configuration profiles installedbash-3.2# profiles -rv 772BED54-5EDF-4987-94B9-654456CF0B9A
profiles: verbose mode ON
profiles: returned error: -204
fail