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Question

Apple Software Updates

  • May 4, 2010
  • 1 reply
  • 10 views
A
  • Anonymous

2 questions:

1) Can I set the client configs so they look to Casper for Apple Software Updates internally but also can get external updates from Apple Servers if they are away from campus with their laptops?

I have Casper delivering ASUS internally and working fine with recent images but currently they can't see Apple software updates from home with their laptops.

2) Question about troubleshooting steps for Casper Apple Software Updates. Clients with recent images are receiving their updates from the Casper ASUS but older clients seem to have quit receiving updates at 10.6.2

    1 reply

    A
    • Anonymous
    • May 6, 2010

    Tim,

    The Resource Kit contains a "SystemConfigTrigger" script. However it monitors(via launchd) a file (I think its the Library/Preferences/SystemConfig/NetworkInterfaces.plist) which rarely changes during the normal use of a Mac then calls a policy on your jss. I have a policy and network segments / buildings configured with default SUS. Not one of these segments is set system wide as I want the default to be Apple.

    What I have worked on is utilising crankd, simply put it is a substitute for the kicker bundle that was present in earlier versions of OS X. I will not post it as I would be redistributing it ... ;-) http://code.google.com/p/pymacadmin/
    Crankd will monitor the system for network changes and then through the plist preference file run a script for you.

    My use of it will run two commands from within a small script.

    /usr/sbin/jamf policy -action SystemConfigTrigger

    this will obtain the policy from the jss which sets the SUS according to network segment

    The second command calls the following...

    Because Jamf sets the root users SUS server I needed to replicate the root users SUS to the /Library/Preferences/com.apple.Software..... to make it available for all users. The advantage of using this method is that Jamf works out the sucatalog path for us which dependant on the OS version.
    ----------------------------
    #!/bin/bash

    # This script is to simply replicate the Software Update server
    # from the root home directory to the Library to make this # available system wide Tomos Tyler 20/3/2010

    catalogURLValue=(defaults read /var/root/Library/Preferences/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate CatalogURL)

    defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate CatalogURL $catalogURLValue

    logger -t susupdate Softwareupdate server set to $catalogURLValue

    exit 0
    ---------------------------- I am sure someone could improve on this however I have been running this for 2 months with no issue. I work on lots of sites and have been entering in SUS servers where I find them. And it gives me a good test bed of users within a defined area and an unknown area.

    So thats kind of it, I did make the SystemConfigTrigger on the JSS available for offline use which clears the SUS when offline and thus sets it back to Apple's Server.

    Tomos

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