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Enabling automatic macOS software updates for OS X Yosemite through macOS Mojave
A while back, I wrote a post on how to enable automatic OS X updates on OS X Yosemite. The methods used to enable automatic macOS updates changed as of macOS Mojave, so let’s take a look at the...
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Unlock or decrypt your FileVault-encrypted boot drive from the command line...
As part of working with FileVault on macOS Mojave, it may be necessary to decrypt an encrypted boot drive in order to fix a problem. On Mojave all boot volumes will use Apple File System (APFS), so to...
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Unlock your FileVault-encrypted boot drive using Disk Utility on macOS Mojave
In the event that you need to unlock an unbootable FileVault-encrypted boot drive on macOS Mojave, it’s possible to do so using Disk Utility and the password to a FileVault-enabled account on the...
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Building macOS installer disk images for virtual machines with...
A while back, I wrote a couple of scripts which built installers for Mac virtual machines: create_os_x_vm_install_dmg create_macos_vm_install_dmg However, Apple made some changes to the macOS installer...
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Detecting installed 32-bit applications on macOS Mojave
Over the past couple of OS releases, Apple has made it increasingly clear that 32-bit applications are on the way out. Starting with macOS High Sierra 10.13.4, launching a 32-bit application for the...
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Providing access to macOS software updates via Jamf Pro’s Self Service
For a number of OS releases, Apple made both macOS software updates and Mac App Store (MAS) updates available via the MAS Updates page. I was able to use this to provide an easy way for customers to...
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Unable to enable FileVault on macOS Mojave
As part of FileVault on Apple File System, Apple introduced a new account attribute called Secure Token. Secure Token can present some interesting complications for Mac admins and among them is this...
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Re-syncing local account passwords and Secure Token on FileVault-encrypted...
As part of FileVault on Apple File System, Apple introduced a new account attribute called Secure Token. As mentioned in a previous post, Secure Token can present some interesting problems for Mac...
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Mouse doesn’t move at FileVault login screen in VMware Fusion macOS Mojave VMs
As part of working with FileVault on macOS Mojave, I’ve been using VMs running in VMware Fusion 11.x for testing. As part of that, I’ve seen a problem where the mouse doesn’t move when the VM has...
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Mounting Time Machine local snapshots as read-only volumes
Starting with macOS High Sierra, Time Machine on Apple File System-formatted (APFS) boot drives gained the ability to create APFS snapshots. These snapshots are stored on the boot volume, but are not...
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Checking the SSL certificate used by an Active Directory domain controller
Yesterday, Jamf sent out the following notification in advance of the release of Jamf Pro 10.11.0: One part of the message which caused some concern is this section: Additionally, any LDAP server...
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Building an installer package for Privileges.app
One of the open-source contributions by the Apple@SAP team has been Privileges.app, a tool designed to grant or take away administrator rights from accounts on macOS. The general idea behind Privileges...
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Updated MigrateADMobileAccounttoLocalAccount script now available to fix...
A couple of years back, I wrote a script to assist with migrating AD mobile users to local users. I had to update it in 2018 to fix a bug, but once that issue was fixed, the script has chugged along...
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Notarizing Automator applications
Apple recently updated their notarization documentation to include this note: Beginning in macOS 10.14.5, all new or updated kernel extensions and all software from developers new to distributing with...
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Creating, managing and using Apple File System snapshots for startup drive...
Starting with macOS High Sierra, Time Machine on Apple File System-formatted (APFS) startup drives gained the ability to create APFS snapshots. These snapshots capture the state of the startup volume...
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macOS, hyperthreading and Microarchitectural Data Sampling vulnerabilities
In 2018, vulnerabilities were publicly disclosed in computer processor architecture which affected the vast majority of desktops, laptops, mobile devices and servers. These vulnerabilities are referred...
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Using AutoPkg 1.1’s recipe template creation option
As part of the release of AutoPkg 1.1, a new-recipe feature was added to help with recipe creation. It will create a generic recipe file with the following keys added: Description Identifier Input...
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Using bootstrappr to build testing VMs with VMware Fusion
As part of my preparation for next week’s WWDC conference, I’ve been working on ways to build virtual machines using VMware Fusion for testing. In previous years, I have used NetBoot-based solutions to...
View ArticleWWDC 2019 notes
This week, I’m out in San Jose, California as an attendee of Apple’s WWDC 2019 conference. As part of this, I’m taking notes during the labs and sessions. Due to wanting to stay on the right side of...
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New TLS security requirements for iOS 13 and macOS Catalina 10.15
As part of the information published at WWDC 2019 by Apple, the following KBase article has been released: Requirements for trusted certificates in iOS 13 and macOS 10.15:...
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