Author: ab

Mac Admin, Consultant, and Author

Build Simple Packages with Scripts

In a past post, I described how path_helper works. As an example, I mentioned the installer for Python 3 which runs a postinstall script that locates and modifies the current user’s shell profile file to add the Python 3 binary directory to the PATH.

Not only is modifying a user’s file a horrible practice, but it will not achieve the desired purpose when the user installing the package is ultimately not the user using the system. This setup happens fairly frequently in managed deployment workflows.

As described in the earlier post, macOS will add the contents of files in /etc/paths.d/ to all users’ PATHs. So, all we have to do is create a file with the path to the Python 3 binary directory in /etc/paths.d/. A perfect task for a simple installer package.

The steps to create such an installer are simple:

$ mkdir -p Python3PathPkg/payload
$ cd Python3PathPkg
$ echo "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.7/bin" > payload/Python-3.7
$ pkgbuild --root payload --install-location /private/etc/paths.d --version 3.7  --identifier com.example.Python3.path Python3Path-3.7.pkg
pkgbuild: Inferring bundle components from contents of payload
pkgbuild: Wrote package to Python3Path-3.7.pkg

This is not so hard. However, since the path to binary contains the major and minor version number, you will have to create a new version when Python 3 updates to 3.8 (and 3.9, etc…).

So, it makes sense to script the process. With a package this simple, you can create everything required to build the package (i.e. the payload folder with contents) from the script in a temporary directory and then discard it after building.

You can find my script at this Github repository.

Note: when you modify the PATH with path_helper, your additions will be appended. The Python 3 installer prepends to the PATH. This might lead to slightly different behavior, as the Python 3 behavior overrides any system binaries. If you want to prepend for every user, you have to modify the /etc/paths file.

There are a few other simple installers where this approach makes sense. I also made a script that builds a package to create the .AppleSetupDone file in /var/db to suppress showing the setup assistant at first boot. Since I was planning to use this with the startosinstall --installpackage option, this script builds a product archive, rather than a flat component package.

You could create this package once and hold on to it whenever you need it again, but I seem to keep losing the pkg files. The script allows you to easily re-build the package in a different format or sign it when necessary. Also, dealing with the invisible file is a bit easier when you just create them on demand.

The last example creates a single invisible file .RunLanguageChooserToo, also in /var/db/. This will show an additional dialog before the Setup Assistant to choose the system language. MacAdmins might want to have this dialog for the obvious reason, but it also allows for a useful hack. When you invoke the Terminal at the Language Chooser with ctrl-option-command-T it will have root privileges, which allows some interesting workflows.

With this package the creation of the flag file happens too late to actually show the chooser. So I added the necessary PackageInfo flags to make the installer require a restart. Note that startosinstall will only respect this flag with a Mojave installer, not with High Sierra.

These three scripts can be used as templates for many similar use cases. As your needs get more complex, you should move to pkgbuild scripts with a payload folder, munkipkg, or Whitebox Packages.

You can learn about the details of inspecting and building packages in my book: “Packaging for Apple Administrators”

Weekly News Summary for Admins — 2019-01-25

This was a busy week with many important updates.

However, all this news has been overshadowed by the news of the death of Tycho Sjögren.

My condolences to his close friends and family.

Tycho was probably best known as the organiser of the MacSysAdmin conference in Gothenburg. But he had been working as an admin and trainer for decades, influencing the career of many in the Apple Admin field. You should go and read the reactions and stories on Twitter and in the #macsysadminconf channel on the MacAdmins Slack to see how far his influence reached.

Even though I have only been at MacSysAdmin for the last two years, I was immdiately struck by the atmosphere of the conference. For a speaker, Tycho’s suggestions and criticisms during preparation were helpful and spot-on, as was his praise afterwards. You could feel his deep experience and passion for the conference and, even more, the community. He would build the conference he himself wanted to experience, and as a speaker, you wanted to impress him.

Then Tycho would sit in the first row for every presentation, eagerly paying attention. MacSysAdmin is a single-track conference, because then all the attendees see the same presentations and the hallway conversations are based on the same topics. MacSysAdmin also had many chances for conversations among the participants with many breaks, good food and fun evening activities. This is a great chance to meet friends, old and new, thank people whose presentations or blog posts have helped and inspired you, share solutions, and to discuss the last session.

Tycho was able to share his interest and passion with the entire conference, and his stye and method has influenced others around the world. It lives on in all the big conferences, small local meetings, and in the online meeting places.

We will miss Tycho, but we will keep sharing his interest and passion.

On Scripting OS X

News and Opinion

MacAdmins on Twitter

  • Anthony Reimer:
    “#MacAdmins: I’ve updated my article from last September that lists the AutoPkg repos that cannot be seen by AutoPkgr (we’re up to 13).”
  • Carl Ashley:
    “So, #macadmins, if you need to generate a PPPCP profile to let kickstart work on macOS 10.14+, Apple KB article: https://support.apple.com/en-au/HT209161 The binary if you want to keep this in your version control is: ”/System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ScreensharingAgent.bundle”
  • Josh Braun: “I just found out that TextWrangler, which I’d previously thought defunct, lives on as the freemium version of BBEdit and I’m way more psyched about this than I would’ve anticipated.”
  • Mac Justice:
    “Kind of annoyed at how both Google and Apple photos went whole-hog on fancy AI nonsense but trying to do a collaborative family vacation photo album (a pretty typical scenario!) is still full of UX pain.”
  • Daniel Jalkut: “macOS 10.14.4 will include the stable ABI Swift libraries!… ”
  • Miles Leacy: “The status item “Device Enrollment Program” covers any and all components and hosts required to deliver device enrollment services.…”

Bugs and Security

Support and HowTos

Scripting and Automation

Apple Support

Updates and Releases

To Listen

Support this News Summary

There are no ads on my webpage or this newsletter. If you are enjoying what you are reading here, please spread the word and recommend it to another Mac Admin!

If you want to support me and this website even further, then consider buying one (or all) of my books. It’s like a subscription fee, but you also get a useful book or two extra!

The Year 2018 for Mac Admins

Happy New Year! (Again.) I started writing this post before the holidays, but it kept growing, needed revisions and additions. I did decide this review is “complete” for now, but mostly because it would be embarassing to publish a review of 2018 in February or later.

2018 was certainly “interesting” for MacAdmins.

The MacAdmins annual schedule does not really fit well with the calendaric year. The two main highlights of the year for Apple Admins are the Developers’ Conference and then the annual main release of iOS and macOS. Nevertheless, I ask for indulgence as I put down my thoughts what is going on in the MacAdmin World.

Apple is Firing on all Cylinders

Looking back, it is amazing how many new products Apple introduced in 2018. The HomePod, originally planned for late 2017 started the year. There was a overhaul of the iPad line with the new low-end model in the Spring and the new iPads Pro in October. The Fall event yielded not just one new iPhone model, but three, as well as a redesigned Apple Watch. Many new, and long-awaited Macs with the new MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, and finally a new Mac mini.

Apple also released tons of new software and services. There was Apple Business Manager, an updated Apple School Manager and Classroom app. Obviously, iOS 12, macOS Mojave and all their siblings, were introduced in the Fall and all the productivity apps, as well as the Pro apps (Logic and Final Cut) got some interesting updates. The Shortcuts app is a new (or at least re-branded) addition to iOS. Apple Books (iBooks Store) and the Mac App Store got a new design overhaul.

It is also interesting to consider the products that Apple did not update this year: AirPods, iPod touch and iPad mini, Apple TV, iMac (Pro), MacBook and Mac Pro.

Some of these (AirPods, Apple TV, iMac) are likely on a two-year upgrade cycle and should get an update in 2019. Apple famously pre-announced the (highly overdue and anticipated) new Mac Pro for 2019. The 12″ MacBook could be on a two-year cycle, but also occupies an awkward postion between the new MacBook Pro and MacBook Air. This leaves the iPod touch and iPad mini in a sad state (or maybe not?)

Apple is Pruning

Among all of these updates and new products, Apple has also pruned their product line.

Apple announced they would stop making Airport Base stations and Time Capsules. The iPhone SE was discontinued. There are no more iPhones sold with a headphone jack.

In the MacAdmin space, Apple announced the removal of many services in the macOS Server application, leaving only a few. What remains of Server is Profile Manager, Xsan and Open Directory.

All the new Macs with the T2 system controller will not NetBoot any more. All new Mac models introduced in 2018 have the T2 system controller. While this is a huge improvement in security and performance, administrators will have to adapt to the changes this heightened lockdown brings. We can’t say we haven’t been warned, though.

Apple in Enterprise is growing

Even though Apple’s events focus on the consumer business, Apple has been gaining market- and mindshare in Enterprise and businesses. We rarely get numbers on this from Apple directly, but their partners and customers seem happy enough to brag.

Apple’s strong message on privacy is aimed mostly at end users. Enterprises are listening as well, and mostly like the messaging.

Many IT organisations that traditionally only supported Windows now have to open up their services to mobile smart phone platforms. This also creates an opportunity to add support for other platforms and has led to a Mac revival in many organisations.

We are also seeing many traditional ‘Enterprise’ solutions being built with iOS support, such as Cisco Security Connector. Again, while these solutions are built mainly with iOS in mind, the less prominent elder sibling macOS often gains support as well.

Overall, the trend in many Enterprises is to support more than just one platform. This is an important change the previous “Windows, unless you have a really good reason.” Once you (have to) break with single-platform policies, then adding even more platforms becomes easier.

This process is not universal, however. Microsoft has announced it will switch to using the Chromium engine for their Edge browser, leaving only Firefox as the last major non-WebKit based browser.

Apple is reaching out

Maybe as a result of the continued interest for Apple in the Enterprise, Apple has, for the first time, officially had speakers at the Penn State Mac Admins Conference.

There have been ‘unofficial’ or even ‘undercover’ sightings of Apple employees at conferences before, but officially providing speakers for sessions is new for Apple. At least since the demise of the IT Track at WWDC in 2009. I think this is a wonderful development and hope Apple continues this new policy of communication with more conferences.

Apple employees Jeremy Butcher and Doug Brooks were guests on the MacAdmins podcast, where they talked about the new hardware, MDM and the T2 chip. This was an amazing surprise in 2018, and would have been hard to imagine just a few years ago.

Apple is Hiring

In 2018, we have seen several members of the MacAdmins community and wider Apple Tech scene get hired by Apple. I am wishing all of them the best!

I think it is great that Apple is hiring these experienced experts into the various teams and hope that their voices and skills will be valued and listened to. Much can be gained both within and outside of Apple when these skills are applied well. I do not want to imply that the existing members of the various Apple teams don’t have important skills, but ‘outside’ experience and perspective is very valuable.

On the other hand, it is a bit sad that the secretive Apple culture is now removing these voices from our community, at least for the time being. Maybe the new openness that Apple has demonstrated will allow us to hear from them before the end of their stint at Apple.

MacAdmin Community is Growing

That said, the MacAdmin community is growing at an impressive rate. The MacAdmins Slack went above 20K users with nearly 4000 weekly active users.

What I find interesting and encouraging is that these aren’t just “senior” MacAdmins with decades of Apple experience, but many young and new people who come here from other platforms or other support jobs.

To all admins new to the Mac and iOS platform: Welcome!

If you haven’t joined the MacAdmins Slack yet, do it now! You can read my “opinionated guide to MacAdmins Slack” first.

The Admin Environment is getting more complex and integrated

Another good reason to welcome all those new admins is that we have a lot of need for them. More and more organisations are in need of MacAdmins. But also the Apple platforms are required to integrate into more and more other complex systems and platforms.

Laptops and smart phones aren’t standalone devices anymore, but work within a complex web of networks, services, other devices and applications. No piece works entirely without any of the others.

With the demise of the Xserve, the Mac mini Server and, most recently, macOS Server, “Mac” admins have to use other platforms to host essential services. This provides several features, such as virtualization and cloud services, that aren’t possible with macOS.

In some organisations, you may still be able to have a single admin to manage everything tech related, but in most cases Mac and iOS engineers will have to work within teams of admins managing multiple different services and platforms.

Not only do traditional Mac admins have to learn other platforms and services, but the admins with backgrounds in these other platforms are now confronted with Mac and iOS and many of them are starting to take reponsibilities for these platforms as well. Once again, welcome!

Highlights

We got the --eraseinstall option for the startosinstall command. You can tell this got me excited because I helped build an app around that. Also, the startosinstall command was made official by Apple, after lurking in the macOS installer application bundle for a few system releases.

Together with APFS for all drives in Mojave, MacAdmins can now build a new installation based workflow for all Macs that can support 10.14 and beyond. You can read more about this in my latest book (another highlight for me in 2018) ‘macOS Installation for Apple Administrators.’

The new Mac hardware is definitely interesting. The Mac mini didn’t just get a speed bump, but a major boost. Apple has clearly recognized that the mini is not only being used as a cheap entry-level Mac, but as a “Pro” device where an iMac, iMac Pro or Mac Pro is overkill.

The T2 System Controller chip has been in every new Mac model introduced in 2018. Even the new MacBook Air and Mac mini have the T2. I really appreciate the performance and security implications. But the T2 brings with it new limitations and workflows for MacAdmins.

Still Missing for Admins

Much has been said about Apple’s ‘misses’ for 2018. From a ‘normal’ user perspective I liked Rene Ritchie’s summary: Vector Apple misses

Since admins are also users, all of those topics are relevant to us, too. However, as MacAdmins we have other concerns as well.

Mac App Store: VPP vs Subscription and in-App-Purchases

The Mac App Store application got a visual overhaul in Mojave. The backend, however, remains an utter mess. (I am still continually annoyed by the fact that I cannot search, purchase or even reliably view apps for other platforms.) While I approve of the application sandbox on macOS in general, the limitations imposed by Apple still exclude entire categories of useful tools and applications from the Mac App Store.

Nevertheless we have been promised more software for the Mac App Store, most prominently Microsoft’s Office 365 Suite. Since Apple showed off Adobe Photoshop for iPad in the Fall event, there may also be hope for Adobe applications. Both of these solutions are from prominent large vendors and one would presume the app would be free in the Mac App Store (like on iOS) but require an subscription (Office 365 or Adobe Cloud) to unlock or activate.

Apple mentioned at WWDC in June that they were adapting the rules to allow for more apps in the Mac App Store. They explicitly mentioned Barebones’ BBEdit and Panic’s Transmit, both of which were present in the Mac App Store previously, but left because of limitations. Panic published Transmit in November, with a yearly subscription price. You can still get Transmit for a fixed single price from their website.

Apple has been pushing the subscription model as a solution for vendors to get recurring income without paid upgrades. Other apps, like the great applications from the OmniGroup, are also free to download, but require an in-app purchase to unlock the full feature set. While subscriptions and in-app purchases have their downsides, I think they can be a useful solution for developers and users.

However, when you need to buy applications in large numbers from the Mac App Store, Apple will refer you to their Volume Purachasing Program (VPP) now called “Applications and Books” as part of the Apple Business Manager or Apple School Manager. Neither subscriptions nor in-app purchases are supported by VPP.

Furthermore, MDM commands are sent to a client without the expectation of any feedback, other than that the command was received. The installation may fail and the MDM will not care. Some management solutions close the loop by reporting installed applications back through a custom agent and can take action on that data. But it would be nice if this loop were closed by the MDM protocol and agent directly.

The example of Transmit shows that Apple seems to be working on expanding and refining the set of entitlements available. This is promising, but as the continued absence of BBEdit demonstrates, still requires a lot more work, time and patience.

Obviously, Apple will not comment on future features. These limitations have existed for several years now. On macOS, software vendors at least have the option of offering installers and volume or education licenses outside of the store. But, as subscription and in-app purchase models are becoming more popular in the iOS App Store, this is turning into a problem not only for macOS.

All of these limitations are holding back the App Stores and VPP as a deployment tool. I believe that pushing VPP applications with an MDM could be useful and powerful. Admins can securely push a VPP app and its configuration together with a profile or managed app config and manage licensing or subscription, without the need scripting or packaging. On iOS, VPP is the only solution for this. But Apple is hobbling their own solution by not offering subscription or in-app purchase VPP.

Full “Zero-touch” Deployment

Apple and many management system vendors like to tout “zero-touch” deployment. This of course means “zero-touch” for IT department. I do appreciate the elegance of these kinds of workflows, where a device can be shipped directly to the user and the device is automatically enrolled on first setup. This allows for deployment workflows that simply weren’t possible before.

That said, there are other environments with vastly different requirements. Especially education setups still have labs or carts full of iMacs or MacBooks. Imaging and NetBoot are dead for new Mac models with T2 chip and Secure Boot. But the new deployment models always require user interaction at some point during the re-install/enrollment workflow.

When you use DEP (Automated MDM Enrollment), you can suppress most of the screens during system and user setup, but there are a few screens (Region, keyboard layout, possibly time zone, and then, of course, approving the Remote Management) that you cannot skip. Any deployment workflow will stall at this point, until someone physically clicks through those dialogs.

You can skip SetupAssistant and DEP entirely and enroll to the MDM with a script or pkg. This defers the mandatory clicking for user approval to the end of the deployment workflow, but there are still some configuration and deployment tasks, that have to be put on hold until user-approval of the MDM is given. Third Party Kernel Extensions and tools that require PPPC approval can’t be installed without a UAMDM.

User-approval should be required during a manual enroll or after an enrollment done with a script. This is a necessary security measure to prevent computers from being enrolled to rogue MDMs by malware.

However, automated enrollment with DEP should not require any user interaction. Once a Mac is listed in the Apple Business/School Manager, it should be considered owned by the organization. I believe admins should have the option to pre-configure and skip every step of the setup workflow.

macOS Installer Versions

Apple has finally acknowledged the startosinstall command, was among my highlights. They also added a very useful option with --eraseinstall. To use this tool, you need to have the “Install macOS *.app” on the Mac (or an external storage). And you need the correct version.

Hardware specific builds of macOS aren’t a new thing. When new Apple hardware is released, it usually comes with a very specific build of macOS that will run exclusively on that hardware. Usually with the next update to macOS the hardware specific build will be merged into the main macOS build and we have a universal installer application again. There are exceptions: the iMac Pro had an hardware specific build for two updates and was not merged until 10.13.4.

The 2018 MacBook Pros were released with a hardware specific build of macOS 10.13.6. Since 10.13.6 was the final update for 10.13, admins holding on to 10.13 for the time being will have to provide and manage the general version of 10.13.6 as well as the hardware specific build for the 2018 MacBook Pros.

Additionally, it is really hard to get a hardware specific macOS installer application through any official means from Apple. You can download the generic installer from the Mac App Store on any Mac that support High Sierra other than the 2018 MacBook Pros. You should be able to download the hardware specific build of 10.13.6 on a 2018 MacBook Pro that requires it, but that process has been riddled with errors and bugs.

All these various builds and versions are tracked and communicated by MacAdmins, but not by Apple. As of this writing, this Apple Support article has no mention of the hardware specific builds of 10.13.6 or any Mojave version, even though it was updated in December. There were specfic builds for the 2018 MacBook Pro (17G2208), Mac Mini (18A2063), MacBook Air (18B2107) and MacBook Pro with the Vega card (18B3089).

This is horribly frustrating. Greg Neagle reverse engineered the download process of the macOS install application and built a script. The script will still have to be run on the respective hardware, but it is more reliable to download a specific installer than the Mac App Store.

I am (once again) hugely grateful for Greg’s effort. However, that so many MacAdmins rely on a hack to download the essential piece of the deployment workflow, is nothing but a disgrace, no matter how well-executed the hack is.

On top of that, security updates don’t increase the version number, but do change the build number, resulting in a confusing list of possible build numbers for 10.13.6.

Apple has provided helpful download links for older macOS versions as support pages. These links lead to the Mac App Store. But links to older macOS downloads will fail on any Mac that doesn’t support that particular macOS version.

I understand that normal end users probably shouldn’t be able to view or download a version of macOS that cannot be installed, but there should be an official way for MacAdmins to download older versions of macOS, even when they working on the latest and greatest Mac.

Documentation

Documentation on Apple’s Support pages has seen improvements in some ways. There were several timely articles posted around the release of Mojave. We got great security documents on Secure Boot and the T2 chips. We got a first, though still incomplete, glimpse at APFS documentation. The MDM specification and Configuration Profile reference moved from HTML to a PDF document, which makes it harder to read or process, but it is still being regularly updated.

Overall, however, I still have to give Apple a failing grade for documentation from a MacAdmin perspective. Crucial pieces of the deployment workflow, such as the startosinstall command, Secure Token and APFS FileVault, or how to determine which software and scripts to add to a PPPC profile have been reverse engineered by admins in the field and there is still, more than a year after High Sierra and four months after the release of Mojave, no or very sparse documentation from Apple on any of these topics.

Thanks to the amazing efforts of fellow MacAdmins we have great documents and tools for many of these topics. The spirit of sharing and communication in the MacAdmins community does everyone credit.

With success stories like SAP and IBM, no-one can credibly claim Apple is not “for the Enterprise.” Apple wants to push quick release cycles and fast adoption of new macOS upgrades and updates. I agree with these goals. But a quick update cycle also requires similarly quick releases of documentation. When you want admins to support the latest and greatest release, then you need to tell them how, and not wait for someone to reverse engineer everything.

Looking to 2019

What will 2019 bring for MacAdmins?

New Mac Pro

The highly anticipated new, “modular” Mac Pro is on the top of that list. Will it be able to excite the Pro customers? We can probably also expect a new Apple branded display to supplement the Mac Pro. Since Apple has introduced external GPUs for the MacBooks, I am wondering if a new Apple Display might come with a GPU, rather than relying on the GPU power in the Mac. I am also curious if Apple can and will use Thunderbolt 3 in other ways to make the new Mac more “modular.”

The 2018 Mac mini turned out to be more powerful than any Mac mini before. You can configure up to six i7 cores, 64GB RAM and 10GigaBit Ethernet. On top of that you get four Thunderbolt 3 ports for expansion. With a powerful eGPU or an hypothetical display with GPU, the Mac mini can already be seen as a “modular Pro Mac.” Obviously, high-end users want even more RAM, cores, and something more powerful than an i7. The iMac Pro scales from 8 to 18 Xeon cores, and 128GB of RAM, so that should be the baseline for the Mac Pro. But how else will the new Mac Pro distiniguish itself from the Mac mini and the iMac Pro? It’ll be fun to speculate and then analyse the reality.

My prediction for release date? Most likely at WWDC, though there is a chance Apple might do a special event earlier in the year.

More Security and Control

The 2018 Mac models have shown that the T2 system controller or its successor will be in all Mac models going forward. It provides better and faster local disk encryption, Secure Boot, system activation at installation, and can block external boot. Apple has had these “features” in iOS for years.

Secure Boot can be disabled and external boot can be “unblocked” on Macs, but a new system out of the box will have the most secure settings. This follows the model that SIP and user-approved Kernel extension have set in the past.

Apple could start mandating some of these settings. However, they have not mandated SIP even after several years, might be a sign that they will keep those ‘backdoors’ available for a bit longer. (I don’t recommend disabling any of these security features, they are there for a reason.)

Having T2 (or something better) across all Macs could allow Apple to implement some other options, such as stopping to activate/sign older macOS versions, blocking them from being installed. Before they can do that effectively, we will have to wait out the life time of pre-T2 Mac models. Even though all new Mac models in 2018 have the T2, Apple still sells models without T2 chips, such as the entry level MacBook Pro and MacBook Air. To effectively implement something like this, Apple would have to wait until a large fraction of the installed base has the T2 (or better) chip. Given the current life time of Mac hardware this will take at least three to five years.

So, while forthcoming Macs might implement stricter local security, I don’t expect major changes in 2019.

UIKit on macOS

Another big announcement at WWDC 2018 was that Apple had started to port UIKit, the framework for writing applications on iOS to macOS. For now, Apple is ‘testing’ this approach with four of their own apps: Stocks, News, Home and Voice Memos. This framework is not yet available to third party apps. (At least not officially.) The framework (the suspected code-name is ‘Marzipan’) should be available to third-party developers in ‘2019’, most liekly with macOS 10.15.

This will lower the threshold for porting apps from iOS to macOS. Apple surely expects this will be a huge boost to app availability for macOS. However, there are reasons that macOS and iOS are very separate platforms with different UI frameworks. The date or time picker in the Home app is exactly the same as in iOS and not optimized for mouse/trackpad input. None of the Marzipan apps can open multiple windows.

Overall, I think that even a poorly ported Home app is better than no Home app at all. But without multiple windows or something like AppleScript support, the macOS Home app will not live up to expectations of macOS and remain disappointing.

That said, Apple was careful and kept the Marzipan framework private for a year. There will likely be major changes to the current implementation before it is released to developers this summer. Also, it will continue to evolve with future macOS updates.

Overall, I will be looking forward to this.

ARM based Macs

ARM based Macs were predicted for 2020, rather than 2019, so it might be a bit premature.

The motivation for this might be obvious. Intel has had major setbacks in their chip roadmap while Apple own ARM-based “A”-series chips are catching up in performance. Apple has repeatedly shown that they would like to own the all the pieces that go into their devices. So it seems like an obvious, even unavoidable next step to put the A-series chips that are powering the iPad Pro into MacBooks and maybe even desktop Macs as well.

While I am not going to argue that A-series chips are powerful enough for laptops and most consumer desktops, they not yet comparable to the high end “Pro” chips, especially for desktops. Using A-series chips might allow Apple to innovate faster and lower prices, but it would further reduce the distinction between the MacBook and iPad Pro, something that is already putting pressure on the Mac platform sales and confusing for customers.

On the Mac platform, Apple just recently re-commited to Intel with Xeon in the iMac Pro and the Core i7 chips in the new Mac mini and MacBook Air. Presumably the new Mac Pro will have a Xeon chipset that can keep up and exceed the iMac Pro.

It is conceivable that Apple has some massively parallel “super-A-series” logic board design. But that would be a strange course correction away from the path that we have seen in the iMac Pro. GPU power is a key to high-performance computing, VR and AR and machine learning. Any solution Apple uses for future “Pro” Macs will have to support high-end GPUs.

Since the MacBook Air and Mac mini just got refreshes, I don’t expect any news on A-series Macs until these are up for a hardware refresh, probably in late 2020. That timeline would make it unlikely to hear anything at WWDC this year.

The 12“ MacBook is the one wildcard. The 12” MacBook remains positioned oddly between the new MacBook Air and the the 13“ no Touch-bar MacBook Pro. If Apple wanted to show off a power-sipping A-series chip in a notebook form factor, possibly at a lower US$999 entry price, a new 12” MacBook with a single USB-C port, like the iPad Pro, could work quite well.

But would this A-series notebook necessarily be a “Mac?” Keep in mind that Apple rebranded their Book store this year, possibly allowing the “iBook” brand to return to its original use.

Whether this year, next year or later, macOS on A-series will come with some pains for MacAdmins. This will be a hardware specific build of macOS that cannot merge. This new macOS will probably have a deployment even close to iOS than the current macOS. Software could be offered in fat-bundles, including the binaries for both chip sets, or merely fat installers, that choose the binary during installation. Or, the Mac App Store could be the sole means of software distribution, like on iOS.

MacAdmins have weathered transistions like these before. Both the transition to Mac OS X from “Classic Mac OS 9” and the Intel transition actually resulted in many new tools and workflows being developed and used for deployment.

Finally

Times will remain interesting and exciting for MacAdmins. It is obvious that Apple and the entire tech industry have no plans of reducing momentum or changing direction. While it is not always clear in which direction the field is moving, anyone who’d rather stand still and hold to things as they are (were), will be left behind.

Continous trouble-shooting mode and beta-testing can be tedious and frustrating, but when managed correctly, will result in an flexible and up-to-date deployment, where users can get the latest and newest hardware and software, without IT standing in the way.

On to tackle 2019!

Weekly News Summary for Admins — 2019-01-18

Apple has repeated their strong position on data privacy and security with an op-ed by Tim Cook in Time. Ironically, I cannot read the original op-ed, because of European data privacy laws…

If you would rather get the weekly newsletter by email, you can subscribe to the Scripting OS X Weekly Newsletter here!! (Same content, delivered to your Inbox once a week.)

On Scripting OS X

News and Opinion

MacAdmins on Social Media

  • Bob Gendler: “I’m pretty stoked. While we’re not supposed to do work during a furlough I’ve used this time to catch up on some skills that would be useful for work. I created a macOS app in Swift that interacts with a JamfPro server to toggle some settings for use at NIST. This is my first GUI based app I’ve built in Swift with Xcode.”
  • Victor (groob): “Did you know that on macOS 10.14.x launchd has its own plist parser and requires self closing tags for booleans? Bug here (OpenRadar) Thanks to @twseph for patching”
  • Fraser Speirs: “Re: the discussion on @_connectedfm about the 9.7” iPad rising in price to make room for a new mini 5 below it – such a move would be a clear signal that Apple is ceding K–12 education to Chromebook and wants out of the market.” – Thread!
  • Neil Martin: Imaging is dead. Take an hashtag#Apple hashtag#Mac (or a lab full). Add a dash of awesome hashtag#NoMAD Login with upcoming DEPNotify functionality. (video)

Bugs and Security

Support and HowTos

Scripting and Automation

Apple Support

Updates and Releases

To Listen

Support

There are no ads on my webpage or this newsletter. If you are enjoying what you are reading here, please spread the word and recommend it to another Mac Admin!

If you want to support me and this website even further, then consider buying one (or all) of my books. It’s like a subscription fee, but you also get a useful book extra!

PLIST Editor can Open Signed Mobileconfigs

Last year I posted about a useful app to read and edit property list files: PLIST Editor.

In its last update (1.15) the app gained a feature which is tremendously useful to MacAdmins: it can now open signed property lists.

MacAdmins regularly encounter signed property lists when they download configuration profiles (.mobileconfig) from a management server. Since the cryptographic signature is binary data wrapping the property list, most property list editors, such as Xcode or PlistEdit Pro, choke on the signature.

The new PLIST Editor (1.15) now detects a signed mobileconfig and will automatically unwrap the plist data from the signature and display a notification.

PLIST Editor Message

When you click on the notification, you will get more detailed information on the signature itself.

Once you edit and save the mobileconfig, the signature will obviously be removed. You can re-sign the edited mobileconfig file with a tool like Hancock or in the Terminal with:

$ security cms -S -N "Identity Name" -i profile.mobileconfig -o signed.mobileconfig

(Learn more on in my book: ‘Property Lists, Preferences and Profiles for Apple Administrators’)

This addition will be very useful for my workflow and think for other MacAdmins as well.

PLIST Editor is available in the Mac App Store for US$3.99 (price will vary depending on region).

Weekly News Summary for Admins — 2019-01-11

Slowly emerging from the post-holiday and vacation swamp. CES was this, and even though Apple had no official presence, they did gather some headlines from smart TV support of AirPlay 2, HomeKit and iTunes videos. Also they got some attention for this banner ad.

If you would rather get the weekly newsletter by email, you can subscribe to the Scripting OS X Weekly Newsletter here!! (Same content, delivered to your Inbox once a week.)

News and Opinion

MacAdmins on Twitter

  • Mac Mule: “TIL: https://help.apple.com/businessmanager/#/apd1d81e5169 The timescale for processing app licences depends on how many you purchase: 5,000 licences or less are processed straightaway. 5,001 to 19,999 licences are processed after 13:00 PST daily. 20,000 licences or more are processed after 16:00 PST daily.”
  • Erik Gomez: “InstallEnterpriseApplication is broken and I’m really hoping Apple fixes this by 10.14.3, or the next few months are going to be extremely painful.”
  • Kyle Crawford: “SecureToken is broken and I’m really hoping Apple fixes this by 10.14.3, or the next few months are going to be extremely painful.…”
  • Eric Holtam: “softwareupdate is broken and I’m really hoping Apple fixes this by 10.14.3, or the next few months are going to be extremely painful.…”

Bugs and Security

Support and HowTos

Scripting and Automation

Updates and Releases

To Listen

Support

There are no ads on my webpage or this newsletter. If you are enjoying what you are reading here, please spread the word and recommend it to another Mac Admin!

If you want to support me and this website even further, then consider buying one (or all) of my books. It’s like a subscription fee, but you also get a useful book or two extra!

Weekly News Summary for Admins — 2019-01-04

Happy New Year!

2018 was certainly “interesting times.” I have the feeling 2019 will not dissappoint in this regard either.

While many admins seemed to enjoy just taking a week or two off, some took the time for some very interesting posts and projects.

If you would rather get the weekly newsletter by email, you can subscribe to the Scripting OS X Weekly Newsletter here!! (Same content, delivered to your Inbox once a week.)

News and Opinion

MacAdmins on Twitter

  • Jamf: “In case you missed it: @MacTechConf is now in October and JNUC is in November. We’re working together and looking forward to sponsoring the event again in 2019!”
  • MacDeployment YYC: “2019 Conf. Dates: @macaduk 26–27 March, London @acesconf June 4–6, Kansas City MO #MacDeploy June 10–11, Calgary @MacDevOpsYVR June 12–14, Vancouver @psumacconf July 9–12, State College PA MacSysAdmin 1–4 Oct., Göteborg @MacTechConf Oct. 15–18, L.A. JNUC Nov. 12–14, Minneapolis”
  • Geert Barentsen: “2019 is the final year for Python 2. No bug or security patches will be applied to Python 2 beyond Jan 1st, 2020. Time to start using Python 3 only! pythonclock.org”
  • Jason Broccardo: “Apple will upgrade system python sometime in 2020.… ”
  • Joseph Chilcote: “More likely Apple will remove system python sometime in 2023.… ”

Bugs and Security

Support and HowTos

Scripting and Automation

Apple Support

Updates and Releases

To Watch

To Listen

Support

There are no ads on my webpage or this newsletter. If you are enjoying what you are reading here, please spread the word and recommend it to another Mac Admin!

If you want to support me and this website even further, then consider buying one (or all) of my books. It’s like a subscription fee, but you also get a useful book or two extra!

Weekly News Summary for Admins — 2018-12-21

Welcome to the last news summary of 2018. I will be taking off next week for the holidays. I don’t expect much will happen, but if it does, you will see it the first news summary of the new year, on (or around) January 4, 2019.

This was the first full year of the News Summary. I wrote 49 summaries this year. The number of subscribers more than quadrupled, which is both exciting and humbling. I am too lazy to whip up a script to get an exact count but that adds up to about 1500 links to tweets, articles, updates and posts.

I merely gather all these links. The summary would not be possible without something to summarize. My never-ending gratitude goes out to all the people who generously share their expertise and time in all these posts, on the different fora, and in person.

Thank you for writing, and thank you all for reading!

I hope you all get to enjoy a break for the holidays and New Year.

Happy Holidays and all the best for the New Year!

News and Opinion

MacAdmins on Twitter

  • Arek Dreyer: “macOS Support Essentials 10.14 Supporting and Troubleshooting macOS Mojave Exam Preparation Guide was posted! It’s posted at the bottom of the course description page, but here’s the direct link. https://training.apple.com/content/dam/appletraining/us/en/2018/documents/macOS_Support_Essentials_10_14_Exam_Preparation_Guide.pdf”
  • Carl Ashley: “Dear macOS software devs. If you build apps that trigger user consent prompts – aka TCC, please thoroughly document ALL affected binaries with the file path & what PPPCP payloads are required to make the prompts go away. Make this info readily available. MacAdmins will love you.”

Bugs and Security

Support and HowTos

Scripting and Automation

Updates and Releases

To Watch

To Listen

Support

There are no ads on my webpage or this newsletter. If you are enjoying what you are reading here, please spread the word and recommend it to another Mac Admin!

If you want to support me and this website even further, then consider buying one (or all) of my books. It’s like a subscription fee, but you also get a useful book or two extra!

Weekly News Summary for Admins — 2018-12-14

Lots of interesting posts this week. Jamf 10.9, MS Office now supports the Dark Side… er dark mode.

The MacAdmins Podcasts got Doug Brooks and Jeremy Butcher from Apple on the show to talk about Apple, deployment and the T2 chip!

If you would rather get the weekly newsletter by email, you can subscribe to the Scripting OS X Weekly Newsletter here!! (Same content, delivered to your Inbox once a week.)

News and Opinion

MacAdmins on Twitter

  • Charles S Edge: “The github.com/jamfit github.com/jamfprofessionalservices && github.com/jamfsupport accounts have now been consolidated into one @JAMFSoftware Open Source Community at github.com/jamf to make it easier to find projects that do things you might need to do”
  • John C. Welch: (Long Thread, worth reading.)
  • William Smith:
    “Microsoft Office 2019 for Mac v 16.20 drops today with Dark Mode for Mojave users! And if that’s a little too stark when using Outlook (or any other app), here’s how to turn it off. defaults write http://com.microsoft.Outlook NSRequiresAquaSystemAppearance -bool yes”
  • Patrick Gallagher Jr: “Well hello XProtect, been a while!” (Note: MRT got an update, too.)
  • Eric Holtam: “News to me so may be news to others. Firefox 63+ supports mobile config policies. Here begins the move away from the great CCK2. Example settings at https://github.com/mozilla/policy-templates”
  • Graham Gilbert: “If you are a fellow #macadmin and want to speak at a conference in 2019, let me know and I’ll try to make that happen. Whether it is making the right introduction, looking over your proposal or being someone to practice your slides on, let me know how I can help.”
  • lamby: “Symlinks.… ”

Bugs and Security

Support and HowTos

Scripting and Automation

Updates and Releases

To Watch

  • Tim Perfitt: “Using a Smart Card out of the box with macOS for login authentication”
  • Tim Perfitt: “Provisioning Certificates on a Smart Card / Yubikey for macOS authentication”
  • Otto the Automator: “My session at the @JAMFSoftware JNUC 2018 showing how to manage iOS devices upon attachment to a Mac. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aSW_47rXKE ”

To Listen

Support

There are no ads on my webpage or this newsletter. If you are enjoying what you are reading here, please spread the word and recommend it to another Mac Admin!

If you want to support me and this website even further, then consider buying one (or all) of my books. It’s like a subscription fee, but you also get a useful book or two extra!

Weekly News Summary for Admins — 2018-12-07

We got the macOS 10.14.2 update this week, along with iOS 12.1.1 and watchOS 5.1.2. Versioning is really weird this time around. One can assume something major is planned for iOS 12.2.

For macOS 10.14.2 looks like a unified build for all current hardware. It’s been a while.

If you would rather get the weekly newsletter by email, you can subscribe to the Scripting OS X Weekly Newsletter here!! (Same content, delivered to your Inbox once a week.)

News and Opinion

MacAdmins on Twitter

  • Jason Broccardo: “10.12.6 + SecUpdate 2018–006 = 16G1710 10.13.6 + SecUpdate 2018–003 = 17G3025 10.14.2 = 18C54”
  • Jason Broccardo: “!!!! 10.13.6 + 2018–003 = 17G4015 !!!”
  • William Smith: “2019 calendar for Microsoft Office 2019 for Mac for 2019 monthly releases is posted. (Subject to change.) https://macadmins.software/calendar/”

Bugs and Security

Support and HowTos

Scripting and Automation

Apple Support

Updates and Releases

To Listen

Support

There are no ads on my webpage or this newsletter. If you are enjoying what you are reading here, please spread the word and recommend it to another Mac Admin!

If you want to support me and this website even further, then consider buying one (or all) of my books. It’s like a subscription fee, but you also get a useful book or two extra!