One of the primary use cases for Apple Configurator 1 and Apple Configurator 2 is to get apps on devices. Even with MDM, you can use Apple Configurator 2 for app deployment. The value here might be that you end up transferring 10 gigs of apps over a USB cable, rather than over the air in larger deployments. Here, we’ll look at a basic app deployment using Apple Configurator 2. To get started, first download the app and get it in iTunes. This can be accomplished by copying the .ipa file for an app onto a device, or syncing an iOS device with iTunes that has the app installed. Take care that…
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Application Containment in the Post-PC Era
I had a very interesting debate with someone the other day. The debate was around the Total Cost of Ownership of an app on a desktop computer. Let’s say that you have a $5 app. Now let’s say that in order to package that app up and test it for end user deployment, that the cost to your organization is about $400. That’s going to seem high if you just look at it as a number. But when you consider that it takes time to customize an app package so that end user data is preserved and end users aren’t prompted a dozen times, then it takes time to test…
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JAMF Nation User Conference 2012
I mentioned the JAMF Nation User Conference on the site before, but now I need to mention it again. Mostly because I’ll now be doing a presentation now. I know, I said I wasn’t going to be doing much public speaking. But the only conference I’ve been to in the last decade that I wasn’t speaking at has been the JAMF Nation User Conference. Sooo, how could I not, when the conference is, after all, in the city I live in! Anyway, my session has been added to the sessions page: http://www.jamfsoftware.com/events/user-conferences/jamf-nation-user-conference-2012/sessions Hope to see you there!
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Backing Up And Restoring iOS Devices in iTunes
For many iOS deployment projects, iTunes is used as the primary deployment vehicle for the devices. iTunes can be used to “Backup” and “Restore” an iPad, similar to how you image desktop and laptop computers. The actual deployment process is straight forward. First we’ll create a backup in iTunes. Then we can deploy the backup using the Restore option within iTunes. Provided the backup is encrypted, the Restore option will maintain the maximum amount of data available. For example, if a device has been activated then the fact that it has been activated is maintained across a restore. As are the applications that are installed on the device. Create iTunes…
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Making Every User an Admin
If you deploy a large number of computers to users who are somewhat likely to play practical jokes on each other then you will run into some interesting issues. If you are deploying one computer to every user and you want each user to be an administrator of their computer then you might be tempted to allow all users to be administrators of all computers. If you do then prepare for an infinite number of sometimes amusing practical jokes. But really, being proactive about this brings up an interesting point: how do you deploy a computer and make only the user who you want to be an administrator an administrator.…
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Grabbing Serials and MAC Addresses
During various automations in Mac OS X it helps to grab some key unique identifiers for machines. Two very common identifiers are the serial number of a computer and the MAC Address. To grab a systems serial number I usually use ioreg to run the following, which simply outputs a systems serial number: ioreg -l | grep IOPlatformSerialNumber | cut -c 37-46 Because a system can have multiple MAC addresses (one per unique adapter), I will also use ioreg to grab those: ioreg -l | grep IOMACAddress Or to just see an output of the first in the list (en0): ioreg -l -w 0 | grep IOMACAddress | cut -c…
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Scripting Fast User Switching
Fast User Switching allows a user of Mac OS X to switch accounts without logging out of the account they are currently in. There are a number of uses for this, from troubleshooting to managing workflow. The back end functionality comes from the CGSession binary located in /System/Library/CoreServices/Menu Extras/User.menu/Contents/Resources. There are a couple of options you can use with CGSession, -switchToUserID and -suspend. /System/Library/CoreServices/Menu Extras/User.menu/Contents/Resources/CGSession -switchToUserID 1022 If an account has no password then the switch should occur automatically. If there is password then you can simply bring up a login window using the following command (you can also switch to a given user id but it will ask you for…
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318 Open Sources mergeSafBookmarks
Originally Posted to the 318 TechJournal: 318 has open sourced our mergeSafBookmarks python script. This tool can read in a pair of property lists and merge them into a single resultant bookmarks file for Safari. This takes a lot of the work out of pushing bookmarks to existing users as part of your deployment. You can find it here: http://mergebookmarks.sourceforge.net Note: The script also looks at existing bookmarks and doesn’t merge in duplicates.
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ASR Setup Tool Open Sourced
Originally Posted to the 318 TechJournal 318 has decided to open source our ASR Setup Tool, which can now be found at http://asrsetup.sourceforge.net. The ASR Setup Tool is built as a wrapper for the asr command line suite from Apple. The description from SourceForge: Developed by 318 Inc., ASR Setup Tool is an application for setting up Apple Software Restore (“ASR”). In the context of the ASR Setup Tool, ASR is used for setting up a multicast stream that can then be leveraged for imaging Mac OS X computers. We hope you enjoy!
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All 3 Snow Leopard Titles Now on Amazon
All 3 of the Snow Leopard titles I’m working on, editing or in one case done with for Apress are now posted to Amazon and can be purchased.