• Mac OS X,  Mass Deployment

    Announcement (Cross Post) – JSS Add-on for Autopkg

    (Guest Post by Allister Banks) As Venn diagram circles go, many folks in our community are getting into autopkg, and there’s even more that already use the JAMF Casper Suite. Over on the 318.com blog there’s an announcement for a new ‘processor’ add-on that can be installed with autopkg, that therefore can leverage the JSS API to fulfill many of the functions which up until present only Munki enjoyed. Please do read the release notes and give it a try!

  • Mac OS X

    Video on Setting Up a Munki Repo

    (Allister Banks Guest Post:) As part of my presentations at LOPSA-East(the pdf slides of this one is here) earlier this year, I wanted to demonstrate how quickly you can get a proof-of-concept of Munki running on a recent Mac OS without Server. I had always used Greg Neagle’s awesome intro articles for MacTech(especially part 2,) which were  created back in 10.6 days(simpler times, amirite?) This video takes you through the setup of a Munki repo, and goes on to demonstrate not only basic Munki interaction and functionality, but if you setup MunkiWebAdmin and the reporting scripts on your clients in addition, it does a quick tour of that interface. Setting Up a…

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

    Keynote From JAMF Nation

    In case you were there and would like a copy, here’s the slides from the presentation I did this week at the JAMF Nation User Conference 2012. If you weren’t there, then perhaps they will help you in some way. JNUC2012 The session was recorded so I’ll try and post when it becomes available for download.

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

    Using the Software Update Service on Mountain Lion Server

    The software patching configuration built into most operating systems is configured to open a box at home, join your network and start using the computer right away. As environments grow from homes to offices and then offices grow into enterprises, at some point software updates and patches need to be managed centrally. Mountain Lion, as with its OS X Server predecessors has a Software Update service. The service in the Server app is known as Software Update and from the command line is known as swupdate. The Software Update service, by default, stores each update in the /var/db/swupd directory. The Software Update servie is actually comprised of three components. The first is an…

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

    The Mac OS X App Store & Managed Environments

    The Mac OS X App Store was released earlier this month as a part of the Mac OS X 10.6.6 update. The App Store, with over 1,000 applications (including a couple of server tools), allowing people to download and install applications on Mac OS X computers without needing to understand how to click through the screens of a standard package installer, drag applications from disk images into the /Applications folder or basically how to do practically anything except for click and provide a valid credit card number. As with the App Store that debuted with the iPhone, the App Store for Mac OS X is clearly aimed at residential customers,…