Another weighty news summary. After Apple released their updates last week, it seems as if the MDM vendors are following suite. Also MacAdmins are preparing for the demise of Python 2 in macOS 12.3 with many tools updates.
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News and Opinion
- Apple now allows unlisted apps on the App Store – Samuel Axon, Ars Technica
- The Pros and Cons of Mobile Device Management (MDM) Solutions – Kolide (The article has considerable (and possibly misguided) generalizations, but the notion is interesting. See also Tom Bridge’s and groob’s reactions.)
- Why It’s Time to Embrace Remote Work – Brenna Lee, JumpCloud
- What Is Shadow IT? – Kate Lake, JumpCloud
- What shouldn’t you use an M1 series Mac for? – Howard Oakley
macOS and iOS Updates
- Looking ahead to macOS 12.3: Python, DropBox and OneDrive changes – Howard Oakley
- Dealing with ‘new” OneDrive – John C. Welch
- Apple Warns macOS Catalina Users About Installing macOS 12.3 Beta on Volume With FileVault Enabled – Joe Rossignol, MacRumors
- macOS Monterey 12.3 will remove Python 2.7 (/usr/bin/python) – Ben Toms
- Have Monterey updates got smaller? – Howard Oakley
MacAdmins on Twitter
- Rich Trouton: “If you’re using my AutoPkg recipes for Microsoft Defender ATP, Microsoft Defender ATP has changed its name to Microsoft Defender. Please use the new Microsoft Defender recipes.”
- Nathaniel Strauss: “Friday IT fun. macOS Monterey 12.2 breaks printing in some environments using a Windows print server with modified RPC security settings. Specifically RpcAuthnLevelPrivacyEnabled. Feel free to reference my case 101616149128.”
Security and Privacy
- Hang Up and Call Back – Michael Tsai
- A worrying Etsy listing reveals the stalking potential of Apple’s AirTags – Thomas Reed, Malwarebytes Labs
- macOS Security Basics series: The One About Macs (Not) Getting Malware – Jesus Vigo, Jamf Blog
Support and HowTos
- Zsh history command doesn’t show all history entries by default – Rich Trouton
- What is in your toolbox? Command line edition – Neil Martin, dataJAR
- Obliteration Behavior and the Mac Admin – Tom Bridge
- Diagnosing Bluetooth problems in Monterey – Howard Oakley
- Optimization preference added to Microsoft AutoUpdate – Kevin M. Cox
- Oops, I Messed Up – Pam Lefkowitz, JumpCloud
- Munki and AutoPkgr for automated software distribution – Hubert Maslowski
Scripting and Automation
- Update: pkgcheck
- Automatically Export and Generate App Icons in AutoPkg Recipes – Matthew Warren
- jpt 1.0, the JSON power tool in 2022 – brunerd
- jpt 1.0 and JSON5 rehab – brunerd
- jpt 1.0 can deal with multiple JSON texts – brunerd
- jpt: see JSON differently – brunerd
- Helping truncated JSON data with jpt 1.0 – brunerd
- jpt 1.0 text encoding fun – brunerd
- merging JSON objects with jpt 1.0 – brunerd
- How to work with JSON API data in macOS shell scripts without external dependencies – Paul Galow (Update)
- Querying an API for AutoPkg download URLs – Rich Trouton
- Jamf Pro API Script Security – macnotes
Apple Support
Updates and Releases
- quickpkg 1.0beta
- Munki 5.6.3
- brunerd/jpt 1.0.0
- Winclone 10.1 Update – Twocanoes Software
- What’s New in Microsoft Endpoint Manager – Microsoft Endpoint Manager Blog (Notable: Endpoint Manager now understand “Apps in dmgs” for deployment without having to re-package them to pkgs.)
- Mosyle Introduces Admin On-Demand as Market’s First Privileged Access Management Solution for macOS – Mosyle
- Introducing JumpCloud Patch Management – Joranna Ng, JumpCloud (relevant thread by Tom Bridge)
To Listen
- Making More & Doing Less — Command-Control-Power
- Alison Wojahn – Mac Admins Podcast
- Terrible But Necessary: SRE Book Club Part 3 – MacDevOpsYVR
- How a few PhD students revealed that phishing trainings might just not work – Lock and Code, Malwarebytes Labs
Support
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