Adding Older MacOS Versions to VPP

[armenh]

I'm certain the answer to this is "you can't," but I figured I'd try here.

I want to get some VPP licenses for the Catalina installer so I can scope them out to some machines without them having to hit our Jamf servers.  Unfortunately, Apple School Manager only shows the newest version of MacOS Big Sur.  It's easy to get older versions of MacOS directly from the app store if you know the link but that doesn't help me get VPP licenses for it.

Has anybody found a solution for this issue, and if not, any interesting workarounds?

Thanks!

[awoodbury]

We use this erase-install script. You can specify which macOS version to install whether you are resetting or reinstalling the macOS.

https://github.com/grahampugh/erase-install

[armenh]

Unfortunately "softwareupdate --fetch-full-installer" requires Catalina or higher, that argument does not exist in Mojave.

[awoodbury]

Ah, only Catalina was mentioned in your original post.

[armenh]

Yes, apologies.  I should have clarified that we have a mix of Mojave and Catalina that this script needs to work on.

[sdagley]

@armenh If your goal is to update these Macs without requiring they hit your Jamf Pro Distribution Point(s) to download the macOS installer then you should take a look at the erase-install script from Graham Pugh. Despite the name the erase is optional so it can also be used for macOS upgrades, and it will download the specified macOS installer directly from Apple's CDN when run.