Category: Weekly News

Big Apple Event next week! Tuesday will certainly be interesting.

Note: Byword – the app I use to write my blog posts, including this weekly – is on sale this week, both for Mac and iOS!

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

• Terminal Primer – Part 6 – Symbolic Links

News and Opinion

• Always good advice!
• High Sierra’s ‘Secure Kernel Extension Loading’ is Broken – Objective-See
• ‘JAMF and…’ at JNUC ‘17 — François Levaux-Tiffreau
• Apple says there was no security breach on developer site – Jim Dalrymple
• 2017 Hard Drive Reliability – Backblaze, Andy Klein
• The Google Drive app for PC and Mac is being shut down in March – The Verge, Chris Welch
• MDM Piracy by Default – Marriot Library, Sam Forester

Support and HowTos

• Terminal Palettes – Curt Clifton
• OS X/iOS Entitlement DataBase – Jonathan Levin
• Using mdmclient on macOS – Charles Edge
• FSMonitor: Easily find what’s being modified on your file system — François Levaux-Tiffreau
• All About APFS – Jamf
• The Services That Run On Apple Servers – Charles Edge

Updates and Releases

• DeployStudio Server 1.7.7
• Munki 3.1 Release Candidate 3
• FleetSmith: Announcing Custom Bash Scripts – Jesse Endahl
• Announcing the 1Password command-line tool public beta – AgileBits, Connor Hicks
• Open sourcing Airbnb’s Puppet module for Munki – Graham Gilbert

Support

To support Scripting OS X, consider buying one (or both) of my books. Thank you!

If you have already bought and read the books, please leave a review on the iBooks Store. Reviews are important to help new potential readers make the purchase decision. Thank you (again)!

• ‘Property Lists, Preferences and Profiles for Apple Administrators’
• ‘Packaging for Apple Administrators’

Another week, another beta. We also have a date (September 12) for the iPhone Keynote. Everything looks to be ramping up for a September or early October release for macOS High Sierra and iOS 11. Fun times ahead!

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

• Parse Binary Property Lists in Finder Metadata
• Terminal Primer – Part 5 – Managing Files

News and Opinion

• What will iOS and macOS be like in the future? – Jason Snell
• Why the Mac needs iCloud Backup – Dan Moren
• Happy 15th Birthday CCC! – Mike Bombich
• Screen sharing coming with iOS 11 – Six Colors
• Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 Support Will End Oct 2017 – Marriot Library
• Reliability of macOS Sierra: scheduled and background activities – The Eclectic Light Company
• UEFI, 10.13/APFS, and You(r Imaging) – Allister Banks

Support and HowTos

• Writing A Web App With Python – The Macintosh Guy
• Screenshot Secrets for macOS – Alexander Fox
• Building a Jamf Pro smart group containing High Sierra-incompatible Mac models – Rich Trouton
• Jamf Pro in a Virtual Box – Marriott Library
• Digita Security on Twitter: Undocumented softwareupdate flag –include-config-data can be used on Sierra to install timely updates to macOS security features
• Quick and dirty: Pull a list of all filevault encrypted users on a Mac – Charles Edge
• User Approved Kernel Extension Loading – Pike’s Universum
• dot_clean – Merge ._* files with corresponding native files — François Levaux-Tiffraeu
• Microsoft Office support for macOS 10.13 High Sierra –

Updates and Releases

• Parallels Desktop 13
• Interviews on Skype with a real-time code editor
• Munki 3.1 Release Candidate 2

To Listen

• Scripting Your Entire Life with Mike Dodge – Mac Admins Podcast

Support

To support Scripting OS X, consider buying one (or both) of my books. Thank you!

If you have already bought and read the books, please leave a review on the iBooks Store. Reviews are important to help new potential readers make the purchase decision. Thank you (again)!

• ‘Property Lists, Preferences and Profiles for Apple Administrators’
• ‘Packaging for Apple Administrators’

I am back from vacation! We had a great time. Here is the (not too massive) collection of links I still gathered while idly browsing the web and the twitters. (It also seems I lost some of the links because Notes on my iPad with iOS 11 beta, did not sync so well with Notes on my Mac with Sierra…)

Apple is ramping up the final stages of the iOS and macOS beta program and have started releasing some very interesting support articles.

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

• New Support Articles for High Sierra
• Terminal Primer:
  • 1 – First Steps in Terminal
  • 2 – Navigating the File System
  • 3 – Special Characters
  • 4 – Commands
  • Part 5 will be posted soon

News and Opinion

• Clayton Burlison – “Sysadmin day”
• The Best Thunderbolt 3 and 2 Docks – Nick Guy, The Wirecutter
• CrashPlan Discontinues Consumer Backups – Joe Kissel

Preparing for High Sierra

Apple Support

• Prepare your institution for iOS 11, macOS High Sierra, or macOS Server 5.4
• Upgrade macOS on a Mac at your institution
• Prepare for changes to kernel extensions in macOS High Sierra
• Prepare for APFS in macOS High Sierra
• Prepare for changes to Content Caching in macOS High Sierra
• About Apple Pro Apps and macOS High Sierra
• Apple Training Documents updated for 10.12 (Barely in time)

Reactions

• Apple – when it rains, it pours… – N. Martin
• Three Big Things – ModTitan
• Kernel extensions and macOS High Sierra – Rich Trouton
• New Support Articles for High Sierra – Armin Briegel

Support and HowTos

• Disable the new ‘click Connect before reconnecting to a server’ popup – Darren Wallace
• Disable Promiscous Mode Authentication VMware Fusion – David Hill
• Hidden Docs and Functionality in macOS – Marriot Library
• Firmware Follow-up – Anthony Reimer
• How to sign a configuration profile – Darren Wallace
• Using ElastiCache with Jamf Pro in Clustered Environments – John Otander
• Profile to enable FileVault 2 only – Darren Wallace
• Using installer choices.xml to modify AnyConnect and McAfee deployments – E. Hemmette
• Adding password protection to manually installed management profiles – Rich Trouton
• How to create a VM that’ll work with DEP on VMware Fusion – Ross Derewianko
• Setting a macOS VM to automatically boot to Recovery HD using VMware Fusion – Rich Trouton
• Mac Outlook Support Utilities

Updates and Releases

• Windows Subsystem for Linux out of Beta
• Introducing the Jamf Pro 10 beta program

To Watch

• Mac Managers – Creative Cloud Packager AutoPkg Recipes – Patrick Fergus

To Listen

• Excitability As Feature, with Allister Banks – Mac Admins Podcast
• Hot Sauce Talk with Allen Hancock of Watchman Monitoring – Mac Admins Podcast

Support

To support Scripting OS X, consider buying one (or both) of my books. Thank you!

If you have already bought and read the books, please leave a review on the iBooks Store. Reviews are important to help new potential readers make the purchase decision. Thank you (again)!

• ‘Property Lists, Preferences and Profiles for Apple Administrators’
• ‘Packaging for Apple Administrators’

This weekly news summary will be the last until the end of August. I will keep track of interesting posts, and provide a big summary at the end of the month, though I will also be offline a lot and probably miss something interesting. If you find any post or link you think is worthy, you can send to it me on Twitter or the MacAdmins forum (also scriptingosx) and I will make sure to include it.

I have scheduled a bunch of articles to be posted on the weblog over the next few weeks. You can find details in yesterday’s post: Vacation Time, Travel Time, Sneak Preview Time

#! On Scripting OS X

• SSH Tunnels
• Terminal and SSH Apps for macOS and iOS
• Vacation Time, Travel Time, Sneak Preview Time
• Thoughts on the iPod (2001–2017)

News and Opinion

• Adobe Flash’s Days Are Officially Numbered
• Kextpocalypse: High Sierra and kexts in the Enterprise – Erik Gomez
• Sierra isn’t finished yet: APFS support is undone in 10.12.6
• How Jony Ive Masterminded Apple’s New Headquarters – WSJ

Support and HowTos

• SHA–1 Certificate Warning – Richard Purves
• What macOS Version Did I Just Download? – Tim Sutton
• Using installer choices.xml to modify AnyConnect and McAfee deployments – Eric Hemmeter
• Deploying a pre-configured F5 Big-IP VPN client – Rich Trouton
• Typical LDAP mappings for Active Directory in Jamf Pro (formally Casper) – Darren Wallace
• Logs, Logging, And Logger (Oh My)! – Charles Edge
• Apple Discontinues iPod Nano and iPod Shuffle
• Custom DEP – Part 7: Getting started with AirWatch 9.1.3 – Erik Gomez

Updates and Releases

• DropDMG 3.5
• MacPaw acquires The Unarchiver

To Watch

• MacAdmins Conference at Penn State: Resources and Session Videos (YouTube Playlist)

To Listen

• Episode 45: Things Get Loopy When The Rock Shows Up – Mac Admins Podcast

Support

To support Scripting OS X, consider buying one (or both) of my books. Thank you!

If you have already bought and read the books, please leave a review on the iBooks Store. Reviews are important to help new potential readers make the purchase decision. Thank you (again)!

• ‘Property Lists, Preferences and Profiles for Apple Administrators’
• ‘Packaging for Apple Administrators’

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.)

Another busy summer week. mac OS Sierra 10.12.6 and iOS 10.3.3 dropped (along with watchOS and tvOS updates). 10.12.6 unifies the build for the new iMacs and MacBooks Pro. These are expected to be the final updates for Sierra and iOS 10.

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

• Transferring Files with SSH

News and Opinion

• Apple previews new emoji coming later this year
• Automation of Adobe Creative Cloud Packages
• Securing your Mac fleet: Two things you should do right now

Support and HowTos

• Script to install macOS High Sierra DP–3 (17A306f)
• Fixing iCloud Keychains, and backing them up
• Using The WordPress API – Charles Edge
• How To Disable Photos AutoLaunch On An Apple Mac.
• Generating printer configurations using payload-free_package_printer_generator.sh – Rich Trouton
• Close Encounters of the Proxy Kind – Richard Purves
• Technical Note TN2459: Secure Kernel Extension Loading
• Apple 17.0.0.0/8 Services Redux – Richard Purves

PSU Mac Admin Conference Presentation Slides

I re-included last week’s links as well.

• PSU Mac Shoutouts – Patrick Fergus
• Fighting With Physics: A Wi-Fi Workshop – Tom Bridge
• Munki Mistakes Made Right – Tom Bridge
• Storing our digital lives: Mac filesystems from MFS to APFS – Rich Trouton
• Mac Smart Cards – Richard Purves
• Turbocharge your Scripting with PyObjC – Greg Neagle
• Penn State MacAdmins Conference music playlists – Rich Trouton

Updates and Releases

• Malwarebytes 3.0 for Mac Beta
• VMware Fusion Tech Preview 2017
• Transmit 5
• Carrot Weather 4 (iOS)
• macOS Sierra 10.12.6 Update
• macOS Sierra 10.12.6, Security Content
• Security content of iOS 10.3.3

To Read

• Humble Book Bundle: Cybersecurity

To Listen

• Episode 44: Live at PSU Mac Admins Conference – Mac Admins Podcast

Support

To support Scripting OS X, consider buying one (or both) of my books. Thank you!

If you have already bought and read the books, please leave a review on the iBooks Store. Reviews are important to help new potential readers make the purchase decision. Thank you (again)!

• ‘Property Lists, Preferences and Profiles for Apple Administrators’
• ‘Packaging for Apple Administrators’

Much busier this week. Some interesting releases and news. I have also gathered all the links to notes and slides from PSU presentations. If I missed any, let me know and I will include the link next week.

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

• Minimal Terminal Prompt
• SSH Keys, Part 2: Client Verification

News and Opinion

• Ways to work together with your employees to help keep their skills sharp – Charles Edge
• Who Would Apple’s Tim Cook Pick to Succeed Him? – John Montellaro, Mac Obeserver
• 5K Versions of Every Default macOS Wallpaper – 512 Pixels
• The iPhone killed my inner nerd – Tom Warren, The Verge
• The Cost of Hard Drives Over Time – Andy Klein, Backblaze
• *OS Internal, Volume 1, 2nd Edition Status Update – Jonathan Levin
• Apple’s Third Co-Founder Has Never Used an iPhone and Has No Regrets – Madeline Moitozo, Motherboard
• Pondering the conversion from HFS+ to APFS – Mike Bombich
• The Mac Mini Turns 1,000 Days Old Today – Andrew Orr, Mac Observer
• Jason Snell on Twitter: “The fastest Mac mini ever made was released October 23, 2012. So that’s 1723 days. Coming up on 2000!”

Support and HowTos

• Enabling least-privilege screensharing using Apple’s Remote Desktop Client and Screen Sharing.app – Rich Trouton
• Using Brisk to file bug reports with Apple – Rich Trouton
• Open sourcing macOS cookbooks – Erik Gomez
• Steve T-S on Twitter: “By the way, if your High Sierra build to build upgrade does fail at the bless stage, you can trivially fix it like so”
• Configuration Profiles In-depth, Part I – Marriot Library, University of Utah

PSU Mac Admin Conference Presentation Slides

• PSU Mac Shoutouts – Patrick Fergus
• Fighting With Physics: A Wi-Fi Workshop – Tom Bridge
• Munki Mistakes Made Right – Tom Bridge
• Storing our digital lives: Mac filesystems from MFS to APFS – Rich Trouton
• Mac Smart Cards – Richard Purves

Updates and Releases

• “BinDiff 4.3 for Linux, Windows and, finally, macOS” – Christian Blichmann (Download)
• Munki 3.0.3
• macos-icon-generator
• Fantastical 2.4 for Mac: Midsummer edition (Mac AppStore, iPad, iPhone)
• OmniGraffle 3 for iOS (AppStore, OmniGraffle 7 on the Mac AppStore)

To Listen

• Episode 43: Thomas Reed of Malwarebytes – Mac Admins Podcast

Support

To support Scripting OS X, consider buying one (or both) of my books. Thank you!

If you have already bought and read the books, please leave a review on the iBooks Store. Reviews are important to help new potential readers make the purchase decision. Thank you (again)!

• ‘Property Lists, Preferences and Profiles for Apple Administrators’
• ‘Packaging for Apple Administrators’

Fourth of July in the US and summer time has been noticeably slowing things down this week. Let me know if I missed some news…

PSU MacAdmins Conference is happening next week! Safe travels and a great meeting to all who are going!

If you would like to 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

I started a new series of posts on ssh.

• Quick Introduction to SSH for Mac Admins
• SSH Keys, Part 1: Host Verification

Support and HowTos

• Running commands in the current logged in user’s context – Sound Mac Guy
• Hannes Juutilainen on Twitter: “FYI: High Sierra “hdiutil create” defaults to APFS if filesystem is not defined. Check your build/packaging scripts! #macadmin”
• filewatcher: A simple auditing utility for macOS
• Create a forked Sierra 10.12.5 (16F2073) AutoDMG image

To Listen

• Episode 42: Nick McSpadden, Facebook – Mac Admins Podcast

Support

To support Scripting OS X, consider buying one (or both) of my books. Thank you!

If you have already bought and read the books, please leave a review on the iBooks Store. Reviews are important to help new potential readers make the purchase decision. Thank you (again)!

• ‘Property Lists, Preferences and Profiles for Apple Administrators’
• ‘Packaging for Apple Administrators’

#! On Scripting OS X

• RoaringApps for High Sierra
• Check all AutoPkg Recipes

News and Opinion

• APFS Native Normalization – Michael Tsai
• Tony Fadell on the origins of the iPhone – Wired UK
• Test Driving macOS High Sierra Public Beta: Now Even Easier – VMware Fusion Blog

Support and HowTos

• macOS Log Format (tweet)
• VMware Fusion 8.5.8 adds Apple File System (APFS) support – Rich Trouton
• How to optimise storage in macOS Sierra – Amsys
• Activating EndNote X8 using management profiles – Rich Trouton
• Mac Bug Connecting to Non-Apple SMB Shares
• Disable Screensaver Password with a profile – Darren Wallace

Updates and Releases

• Munki 3.0.2

Support

To support Scripting OS X, consider buying one (or both) of my books. Thank you!

If you have already bought and read the books, please leave a review on the iBooks Store. Reviews are important to help new potential readers make the purchase decision. Thank you (again)!

• ‘Property Lists, Preferences and Profiles for Apple Administrators’
• ‘Packaging for Apple Administrators’

I have gotten some positive and encouraging feedback on this newsletter. Glad you all like it. I thought some people might prefer the weekly summary as an email newsletter. If you do, please subscribe here!

Subscribe to Scripting OS X Weekly Newsletter here!

!# On Scripting OS X

• Post WWDC Summary

News and Opinion

• Apple Culture After Ten Years of iPhone – Monday Note
• macOS High Sierra tech preview: A quick look at the stuff you can’t see – Ars Technica
• Introducing Fleetsmith Free and new Security & DevOps catalog apps
• WordPress Proves That Open-Plan Offices Aren’t Necessary
• Jamf Pro 10 Timing Update – Jamf Nation
• Facebook open sources its IT management tool for distributing Adobe’s Creative Cloud tools to employees – TechCrunch
• Above Avalon: WWDC Clues Hint at Mac’s Future

Support and HowTos

• Dock-maintainer: Defined – Zack McCauley
• Use DNS To Improve Caching Service Discoverability – krypted.com
• USB packet capture coming in future macOS – Lists.apple.com
• Imaging and NetBooting of 2017 iMacs – Jamf Nation
• Michael Tsai – WWDC 2017 Links

To Watch

• Casper Ally June 2017 Update – rsaeks.com

To Listen

• Episode 41: Taylor Boyko of SimpleMDM – Mac Admins Podcast

Support

To support Scripting OS X, consider buying one (or both) of my books. Thank you!

If you have already bought and read the books, please leave a review on the iBooks Store. Reviews are important to help new potential readers make the purchase decision. Thank you (again)!

• ‘Property Lists, Preferences and Profiles for Apple Administrators’
• ‘Packaging for Apple Administrators’

Late summary this week. I was traveling this week-end.

Also, I have finally caved and signed up for LinkedIn. Please, connect to me there and endorse or poke me or what ever it is you do on LinkedIn… Thanks!

News and Opinion

• WWDC 2017 — Some Thoughts – Learning By Shipping
• MDM unveilings from WWDC

Support and HowTos

• AutoPkg recipes for Apple Enterprise Connect – Der Flounder
• Test Driving macOS 10.13 High Sierra on VMware Fusion 8.5.7
• MDM Configuration Profile variable Reference – Amsys
• The Boot Camp Boot Process – Twocanoes Software

To Watch

• Michael Lynn – Mac-narök: The End Times of Our Workflows
• MacDevOpsYVR has put many of their presentations online

To Listen

• Episode 40: Mosen on the Mac – Mac Admins Podcast

Support

To support Scripting OS X, consider buying one (or both) of my books. Thank you!

If you have already bought and read the books, please leave a review on the iBooks Store. Reviews are important to help new potential readers make the purchase decision. Thank you (again)!

• ‘Property Lists, Preferences and Profiles for Apple Administrators’
• ‘Packaging for Apple Administrators’