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Using the macOS High Sierra OS installer’s startosinstall tool to avoid APFS...
As part of the upgrade process to macOS High Sierra, Apple has stated that certain drives will be converted from using the HFS+ filesystem to Apple’s new default filesystem, APFS. The conversion...
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Using the macOS High Sierra OS installer’s startosinstall tool to install...
Starting with macOS 10.12.4, Apple locked down the macOS installer to make it impossible to add non-Apple installer packages directly to the macOS Install .app without using NetInstall. However, there...
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Unlocking or decrypting using an institutional recovery key does not work...
As part of Apple’s FileVault 2 encryption, Apple has provided for the use of recovery keys. These keys are a backup method to unlock FileVault 2’s encryption in the event that the usual method of...
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Resizing a macOS VM’s APFS boot drive to use all available disk space
A while back, I wrote a post on how to resize the boot drive of an existing virtual machine. However, that guidance only applies to a boot drive that uses HFS+ for its filesystem. Now that Apple File...
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Slides from the “APFS and the Jamf Admin” session at Jamf Nation Conference 2017
For those who wanted a copy of my APFS talk at Jamf Nation Conference 2017, here are links to the slides in PDF and Keynote format. PDF – http://tinyurl.com/jnuc2017pdf Keynote –...
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Decrypting an APFS encrypted volume using diskutil on macOS 10.13.2
Apple has made changes as of macOS 10.13.2 to the way you can turn off APFS encryption when using the diskutil apfs decryptVolume command. On macOS 10.13.0 and 10.13.1, an APFS encrypted volume could...
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Setting your Mac to receive macOS beta updates using seedutil
As part of a discussion of how to build test VMs, a colleague mentioned how they were using the seedutil tool to help configure Macs to access Apple’s beta updates. I hadn’t run across this tool...
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Secure Enclave, Mac SSD hardware encryption and the future of FileVault
The iMac Pro introduced a number of new features, but one that may have been little noticed is the introduction of hardware encryption for the iMac Pro’s SSD storage. Apple references the hardware...
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FileVault recovery key redirection profile changes in macOS High Sierra
For macOS Sierra and earlier, Apple had a dedicated FileVault Recovery Key Redirection profile payload for FileVault recovery key redirection. This profile was designed to work with a mobile device...
View ArticleOracle Java 9 JDK and JRE installation scripts for macOS
Oracle has started to release Java 9 for macOS, so I’m posting a couple of scripts to download and install the following: Oracle Java 9 JREOracle Java 9 JDK Oracle has been releasing two separate...
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Secure Token and FileVault on Apple File System
As part of Apple File System’s FileVault encryption on mac OS High Sierra, Apple introduced Secure Token. This is a new and undocumented account attribute, which is now required to be added to a user...
View ArticleFileVault management on macOS High Sierra session at Mac Admin & Developer...
I’ll be speaking at Mac Admin & Developer Conference UK 2018, which is taking place in London from February 20th – 21st, 2018. My session will be on Wednesday, February 21st and is covering...
View ArticleBacking up the contents of an AWS-hosted Jamf Pro cloud distribution point to...
As part of removing unused packages from a Jamf Pro cloud distribution point using @shea_craig‘s Spruce tool, I needed to first make a backup of the contents of the cloud distribution point to a local...
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Slides from the “Managing FileVault 2 on macOS High Sierra” Session at MacAD...
For those who wanted a copy of my FileVault 2 management talk at MacAD UK 2018, here are links to the slides in PDF and Keynote format. PDF – http://tinyurl.com/MacADUK2018pdf Keynote –...
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Using installinstallmacos.py to download macOS High Sierra installers
Starting with macOS Sierra, Apple moved the macOS Installer applications from being exclusively an App Store download to now being included in the regular Software Update catalogs. This means that it’s...
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Cancelling an unwanted FileVault deferred enablement
There are sometimes occasions when FileVault deferred encryption has been enabled for a particular Mac and then needs to be turned off. Since FileVault is not yet turned on at this point, there is no...
View ArticleSession videos available from MacAD UK Conference 2018
A number of session videos (including mine) have been posted from MacAD UK 2018. For those interested, the videos are available on YouTube via the link below:...
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New automated restart option added to macOS 10.13.4’s softwareupdate command...
With the release of macOS 10.13.4, Apple has added a new option to the softwareupdate command line tool. As part of the installation options, softwareupdate now includes the option to automatically...
View ArticleDetecting user approved MDM using the profiles command line tool on macOS...
Starting in macOS 10.13.2, Apple introduced the concept of User Approved MDM Enrollment (UAMDM). UAMDM grants mobile device management (MDM) additional management privileges, beyond what is allowed for...
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User-initiated computer enrollment now using MDM profile enrollment in Jamf...
One of the changes introduced in Jamf Pro 10.3 is that user-initiated computer enrollment now has two modes: macOS High Sierra: Uses an MDM profile to enroll the Mac, with the Jamf Pro agent being...
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