macOS Sierra upgrade in Self Service

I've been having better luck packaging and caching the entire Sierra installer (i.e. not dragging the naked installer into Admin, but building a pkg out of it first in Composer) and then calling;

/Applications/Install macOS Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/startosinstall --volume / --applicationpath /Applications/Install macOS Sierra.app --agreetolicense

as part of a policy scoped to clients who have cached the installer itself.

Something fun to look at:

https://derflounder.wordpress.com/2015/11/23/providing-os-x-upgrades-via-caspers-self-service/

Thank you both. Going to try both solutions.

@dmac87 - I wrote something up not sure if it's helpful for you...http://sachinparmarblog.com/macos-sierra-deployment/

Another resource: Take a look at this jamf knowledge base article, which also links to a technical paper on the same subject: [https://www.jamf.com/jamf-nation/articles/173/deploying-macos-v10-7-or-later-with-the-casper-suite](link URL)

I second the derflounder the link. We're about to roll out Sierra using that blog post method.

I'll third the derflounder link. It's working well for our Sierra upgrades.

@psliequ - I am using a similar command through Self Service but every time I run it I get a pop-up saying that the restart was interrupted by Self Service. How are you getting around this? I have tried with and without the Restart option configured in the policy. I even tried putting in a delay in the command and configuring the restart option in the policy but that didn't seem to work. The policy did not consider the command as having finished until after the delay finished and then I got the same pop-up interruption.

I am just curious how you have this configured.

Try putting an

&

at the end if it's being init'ed through Self Service. That should background the process and allow the app to quit cleanly. I think some of startosinstall's options have changed for 10.12.4 as well so double check the rest of the syntax.

I get “/OS X Install Data is not a directory” when I try to use the steps from the derflounder link. Anyone have any suggestions?

@nberanger That post was written I think when El Capitan came out. Things have changed a bit. The tool that he uses in that post doesn't work 100% how it used to: https://github.com/munki/createOSXinstallPkg
I have a blog post: https://babodee.wordpress.com/2017/03/14/another-method-for-macos-upgrades-via-the-jss-using-self-service/ that covers the method I used but perhaps more importantly to you is that it has links to other methods/scripts that other admins have created/shared. It's in the first line of the post. Each of those highlighted words is a link. Hope one of those methods works for you.

Thanks @bpavlov I'll check out your post.

@nberanger which version are you trying to deploy. I know that anything Sierra a after .4 breaks. I have decided to just update with the OS installer up to 10.12.3 and then use combo updates until these things get fixed. so 1 profile to cache the installer, 1 profile to install the cached file, 1 profile to update to 10.12.5 using combo updates. its a pain but this way they dont break.

Also the Link that @bpavlov posted is pretty solid. just remember to use 10.12.3 or under

@jtaveras wrote:

@nberanger which version are you trying to deploy. I know that anything Sierra a after .4 breaks. I have decided to just update with the OS installer up to 10.12.3 and then use combo updates until these things get fixed. so 1 profile to cache the installer, 1 profile to install the cached file, 1 profile to update to 10.12.5 using combo updates. its a pain but this way they dont break. Also the Link that @bpavlov posted is pretty solid. just remember to use 10.12.3 or under

That's what we're doing as well. Wish our respected community gurus didn't have to put so much time and effort into rebuilding this wheel each time an upgrade is released.

@nberanger which version are you trying to deploy. I know that anything Sierra a after .4 breaks. I have decided to just update with the OS installer up to 10.12.3 and then use combo updates until these things get fixed. so 1 profile to cache the installer, 1 profile to install the cached file, 1 profile to update to 10.12.5 using combo updates. its a pain but this way they dont break. Also the Link that @bpavlov posted is pretty solid. just remember to use 10.12.3 or under

I was using 10.12.4, so I guess that explains it. I'll look into the combo update route you have been using.

Thanks!

@nberanger which version are you trying to deploy. I know that anything Sierra a after .4 breaks. I have decided to just update with the OS installer up to 10.12.3 and then use combo updates until these things get fixed. so 1 profile to cache the installer, 1 profile to install the cached file, 1 profile to update to 10.12.5 using combo updates. its a pain but this way they dont break. Also the Link that @bpavlov posted is pretty solid. just remember to use 10.12.3 or under

I was using 10.12.4, so I guess that explains it. I'll look into the combo update route you have been using.

Thanks!