Hi, I work in an education space (with Mac labs and the like) - we have 800+ Macs. Our current process for keeping macOS up-to-date is to copy an entire mac installer to each mac, then use a policy to trigger this installer. I find this a little exessive for applying minor updates. I'm wondering how else people keep their Mac fleets up-to-date. I've looked at Jamf Managed Software Updates but it seems quite manual, and also hit-and-miss.

Unattended macOS Updates

I should have mentioned, looking to apply updates automatically, at a given time - so products such as 'Nudge' wouldn't be suitable.

Personally we use SUPER (superman) which allows several installation options, Hard Soft with a presice date or with possible repport, etc...
It also eliminates the need for user authentication by using the bootstraptoken previously escrowed in Jamf.
https://github.com/Macjutsu/super/blob/main/README.md

Hey. Higher-ed engineer here.

Last semester refresh I started using Software Updates in Jamf. It was very hit and miss. I ended up writing a script that uses Apple’s sucatalog URL and softwareupdate command to determine the latest minor (or major) update, curl down the pkg installer, install it then do a startosinstall. It really was the only way to get 99% compliance.

Happy to share a (sanitised) version of the script if you like. Dealing with secure tokens on Silicon Macs was also a nightmare.

Shannon

I am in Education too. I use the old Jamf method of software updates for the most part. I have them all turn on on a Saturday, and I will then open the smart groups and use the Action and tell them to install and reboot to whichever update I choose. I get over 90% updating with this, and there will be a few left to manually sort.
If I aim to wipe them, then I will send the Installer to the Macs, and I have a script to use startosinstall.
I tried the new Jamf system, but found I was getting maybe 50% updating. And I was also getting some then updating on Monday when users were sigining in, which totally disrupts teaching and isnt acceptable to us.

I can confirm this experience. The macOS Clients do most times not act like expected.

We are curentley looking at the following solution, which looks promissing to us:

https://github.com/avogel-mac/Update_macOS_DDM

Hey. Higher-ed engineer here.

Last semester refresh I started using Software Updates in Jamf. It was very hit and miss. I ended up writing a script that uses Apple’s sucatalog URL and softwareupdate command to determine the latest minor (or major) update, curl down the pkg installer, install it then do a startosinstall. It really was the only way to get 99% compliance.

Happy to share a (sanitised) version of the script if you like. Dealing with secure tokens on Silicon Macs was also a nightmare.

Shannon

I would love to see the script you're using! Sounds great! Ty!

Je trouve que SUPER permet vraiment une bonne personnalisation, notamment en ce qui concerne la possibilité de report pour l’utilisateur final. Bien entendu, il est également possible de forcer l’installation à une date précise ou dans un délai précis. Après cela, il reste un choix personnel d’appropriation de l’outil choisi.

I would love to see the script you're using! Sounds great! Ty!

I've added it to my GitHub repo. Let me know how you go

https://github.com/shannonpasto/UpdateUpgrademacOS

Thanks very much for the feedback, all. I'll take a look into your suggestions and see what fits our envrionment.

Happy Jamfing, everyone!

Just use the built in DDM

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