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It's conference time!
Next week is the big double whammy of MacAdmin conferences with Jamf Nation User Conference in Nashville, TN, US and MacSysAdmin in Göteborg, Sweden. I will be making my way to Sweden next week and am looking forward to seeing everyone there. Safe travels and a great conference experience to everyone!
📰 News and Opinion
Attending Your First Conference
As I will be attending MacSysAdmin again this year, I figured now is as good a time as ever to write about my experiences attending a (technical) conference for the first time.
We Hot-Wired the iPhone 16
But in our world, it’s a big deal: the iPhone 16 lineup makes three big leaps for repairkind.
⚙️ Apple Updates
spctl command line tool no longer able to manage Gatekeeper on macOS Sequoia
On macOS Sequoia, this Gatekeeper management approach no longer works.
Managing Gatekeeper with configuration profiles on macOS Sequoia
Now that the spctl tool can no longer separately manage Gatekeeper, management profiles are the best way to manage Gatekeeper on macOS Sequoia.
Firewall ch-ch-changes in macOS 15 Sequoia
My firewall checking script began life as a simple check of the status in the alf pref file but that file no longer exists in macOS 15.
Inside Sequoia's new Passwords app
After taking a deep dive into the new Passwords app in Sequoia, I’m delighted with it.
Updates
- AirPods: 7A305 for AirPods Pro 2
- GarageBand: iOS 2.3.17
- Apple Platform Deployment: Welcome, What's new, Document revision history
- Apple School Manager: Welcome, Document revision history
🔐 Security and Privacy
The CUPS Vulnerability: What You Need to Know
If you’ve been keeping up with cybersecurity news, you might have heard about a serious vulnerability affecting UNIX systems through the Common Unix Printing System (CUPS)
I cannot tell from this or some other descriptions whether these CVEs affects the CUPS on macOS, as well. Either way, the CUPS web interface is disabled by default on macOS, so most deployments should be good. If you, for some reason, enable the CUPS web interface on your client, you will want to dig deeper here
🔨 Support and Tutorials
AutoPkg and Trust
A couple of recent discussions in the #autopkg channel of the Mac Admins Slack got me thinking more deeply about trust in AutoPkg.
How to secure your company's macOS devices — with configuration profiles
If you want a safe and happy Mac fleet, you'll want to know these configuration profiles:
Configure Software Update Settings for macOS in Jamf Pro
This guide will cover how to manage macOS updates using Jamf Pro as the MDM server.
🤖 Scripting and Automation
EDR Script Runner (0.0.5)
A proof-of-concept, caveat emptor workflow for securely executing a repository-hosted script
User-friendly Adobe Acrobat Add-in Removal for Microsoft 365
Provide users with detailed feedback while removing Acrobat’s Add-in from Microsoft 365
Calculating macOS Version Displacement with SOFA
When we examine the major version of macOS that’s installed on a specific computer, we tend to express how far behind, or in front it is from that which is now released from Apple.
Got an iPhone with an Action button? Here's how to make it smarter
I know Shortcuts is intimidating to a lot of people, so here’s a very simple guide to creating a basic Action Button shortcut with behavior that varies based on some specific parameters.
Updating asset tag information in Jamf Pro using the Jamf Pro Classic API
I wrote a script which uses the Jamf Pro Classic API to look up the relevant computer inventory record in Jamf Pro using the Mac’s serial number and then update the computer inventory record with the matching asset tag number.
♻️ Updates and Releases
Update your Jamf AD CS Connector!
the Jamf AD CS Connector needs to be updated from 1.0.0 to 1.1.0 in order to continue to issue certificates to computers.
Streamlining CI/CD and Package Distribution in Salt Project
As we focus on what’s most important within the Tanzu platform, we will not be building packages or running tests in our pipelines for Arch Linux, Amazon Linux, openSUSE, and macOS.
Kandji Announces Kai: Artificial Intelligence for Device Management
Kai allows admins to quickly gain insights into the state of their Apple device fleets using simple, natural-language queries.
🎧 Listen
An API for Harmonized Tariff Codes, with Diamond Assets
Device Lifecycle is a massive topic for Mac Admins […] and we’re excited to have Kris Roesken from Diamond Assets here to tell us how their customers are approaching this interesting subject.
Interview With Ben Greiner
we welcome back Ben Greiner, founder of Forget Computers and Apple champion and growth advisor at Addigy.
Surviving System Extensions
Aaron Webb from Jamf joins the show to talk about Apple's changes to System Extension management.
Jamf After Dark: Managing Shared iPads and iPhones
Tim Knox and Jonathan Yuresko, Senior Consulting Engineers at Jamf, join Kat and Sean to discuss the creative solutions they’ve built for customers’ unique use cases.
San Francisco’s fight against deepfake porn, with City Attorney David Chiu
the city of San Francisco launched an entirely new fight against the world of deepfake porn—it sued the websites that make the abusive material so easy to create.
🎈Just for Fun
On Wallpapers
I had multiple thoughts on the app, wallpapers, and my approach in general, and I wanted to clarify them for myself and share them with you in kind.