Scripting
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In the last of this series of posts about Jamf Setup Manager, I discuss how we use it to provision MacBooks. This is our primary use case for JSM. Read the first post to learn more about our decision to use it as our preferred tool for provisioning Macs. Design Goals When considering how to replace our…
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Last week, Apple documented how to prevent a Mac from turning on when the lid is opened or the power is connected. As a person with a set of test Macs that get opened and unplugged/plugged all the time, this is a welcome feature. The nvram command to change this setting has a set of…
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Dialpad, in their own words, an “all-in-one AI-powered customer communications platform” has a Mac app that self-updates. If it attempts to install an update and the logged-in end-user is not an admin, the app prompts for admin credentials. This frustrates end-users and help desks alike. I was unable to find a workaround for this behavior…
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macOS can be cleanly re-installed using Erase All Contents and Settings, transferring an IPSW file while in DFU mode, and by using the startosinstall –eraseinstall command in the macOS Install app. All of these come with trade offs. None of them are exactly the same as a factory Mac. EACS IPSW EI OS version Same…
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When sending an MDM command to lock or wipe a device, a six-digit passcode is required. Humans aren’t great at random numbers, so I made several attempts at a shell function that generates random passcodes. Read on or skip to the final solution. All solutions print the passcode and copy it to the clipboard. Attempt…
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UPDATE 1/13/2025: Thanks to a very helpful comment, I was able to remove the need for a manual login during this process. This is the third in a series of posts about Jamf Setup Manager. Read the first post to learn more about our decision to use it as our preferred tool for provisioning Macs.…
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When I deployed Zoom Rooms on Mac minis earlier this year, I assumed that the built-in automatic update functionality would run as the logged-in user. Our logged-in user for Zoom Rooms is not an admin, so I believed that an automatic app update would either fail or prompt for admin credentials. That would be a…
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macOS Sequoia 15 introduces a new privacy feature: randomized MAC addresses for Wi-Fi networks. Each Wi-Fi SSID gets a different random MAC address, instead of the network interface’s physical MAC address, in order to prevent tracking across public networks. This feature has been available on iOS since version 14. The macOS 15 TCP/IP stack uses…
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This year, we set out to build a more stable Zoom Rooms environment at the office. We took the philosophy of treating Zoom Rooms Macs like servers. Software updates would be installed during maintenance windows when the conference rooms weren’t in use. All automatic software update features were disabled via a configuration profile. Rather, software…
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Homebrew, the open-source UNIX package manager tool for macOS, got a new installation option last year: a macOS installer package. This is an exciting change for Mac Admins looking to deploy Homebrew for software developers, sys admins, and refugee Linux nerds in their organizations. That said, the Homebrew package appears built to be installed by…
macadmin.fraserhess.com 