Tag: mac

  • Making Microsoft AutoUpdate check manually for Macs with Munki

    Note: I’m writing with regard to Microsoft Office for 2011. It’s possible the .plist file updates here is different for other versions of Microsoft Office for Mac. If you’re using Munki to manage software updates, you don’t want the applications themselves to be constantly checking for updates or notifying your users when an update is…

  • Terminal command to change a user password on a Mac

    Update May, 2019 Now that there are SecureToken users, the command below no longer works to reset another user’s password. Thanks to mario on the MacAdmins Slack for testing. Acknowledgements Just a cleaned-up version of directions from Mac Script to change Administrator password Changing a user password via terminal command If you ever want to—perhaps…

  • Using OpenSnoop with process names that have spaces in them

    opensnoop is a command-line tool that comes preinstalled with Mac OS X allowing you to see what’s being modified in your filesystem. If you Google some tutorials on it, you’ll see that you can track a particular process name like Safari with code like sudo opensnoop -n Safari but if you try to do it…

  • Keeping up to date using Munki without bothering users

    Munki is a great tool for distributing software and creating little mini App Stores for organizations, so users can do self-service installs of Mac software. But Munki is also a great tool for keeping software up to date. Some software updates are primarily about adding new features. Many updates, however, include bug fixes or security…

  • Packaging CrashPlan PROe for Munki

    Update This no longer applies for CrashPlan 6.5 and above. For more details, see Considerations when upgrading CrashPlan with Munki. Why the official deployment method won’t work for Munki Code42 has a guide for Preparing The Crashplan App For Deployment. It basically downloads (from your CrashPlan PROe server) a .zip file of some tools to…

  • Mac terminal command to disable Java update prompts

    If you’re using Munki to manage Java updates, even if you’re running Autopkg frequently (maybe once or twice a day), it’s possible your users may get a Java update notification when launching Java. In other words, you could have Autopkg run the OracleJava8 recipe at 10:00 AM, your user could launch up a Java-based program…

  • Packaging iWork ’09 for Munki

    In case you have users who miss some of the functionality from iWork ’09 and you happen to still have a copy, you may find useful this little rundown on how I packaged it for Munki. As Greg Neagle mentions in this old Munki Dev mailing list thread, there is a .mpkg file on the…

  • Recreating a deleted recovery partition on a Mac

    Important update: Lately I’ve been having issues with CreateRecoveryPartitionInstaller creating an empty (unusable) recovery partition. I’m not the only one experiencing it, but the problem also doesn’t seem to be universal.. If you’re not getting this tutorial below to work for you, you might want to try this less elegant workaround that totally did work…

  • Packaging NetExtender for Munki

    Disclaimer The following tutorial is based on and works for NetExtender version 7.5.774 for Mac. Your mileage may vary for other versions. Why does NetExtender need a Munki-fied “update”? The actual NetExtender application doesn’t need anything special for Munki. You can do a regular munkiimport on the .dmg file, and it’ll go in just fine…