• Mac OS X,  Mac Security

    App Translocation Services In OS X 10.12

    The “What’s New in macOS” page for Sierra (10.12) lays out a little known change that a colleague at Jamf was working on the other day (hat tip to Brock): Starting in macOS 10.12, you can no longer provide external code or data alongside your code-signed app in a zip archive or unsigned disk image. An app distributed outside the Mac App Store runs from a randomized path when it is launched and so cannot access such external resources. To provide secure execution, code sign your disk image itself using the codesign tool, or distribute your app through the Mac App Store. For more information, see the updated revision to…

  • Mac OS X,  Mac OS X Server,  Mac Security,  Mass Deployment,  Uncategorized

    Viewing Mac App Store Purchases From The Command Line

    As you may have noticed, we’ve been working on building some links between the App Store and patch management tools such as Casper, FileWave and Munki. We’ve been looking at policy-based management of apps as well. In this semi-new world of signing and stores and the such, there’s actually a good bit you can ascertain about an app both inside the app as well as inside metadata OS X keeps about the app. I’ve discussed signing (apps and packages) in the past, but let’s look at using some commands to help us out with some tasks. The first command is to determine some information about apps that are on the…