Block macOS upgrade on Big Sur

P24601
New Contributor II

Hi I have reason to block macOS upgrade on Big Sur 11.6 to Monterey 12.0.1

but '--ignore' are unavailable anymore..

Is there any alternative option for this problem?

6 REPLIES 6

MatthewGC
New Contributor III

https://github.com/Theile/montereyblocker

you can also block it in software restrictions. The restrictions are exact matches so not 100% with clever users. 

ckulesza
New Contributor III

Has anyone deployed this? I deployed bigsurblocker last year with the package the original author had but this one does not have the package and the old notes point to the bigsurblocker. 

 

thanks

Tribruin
Valued Contributor II

If you have 11.6, you can also use the Restrictions profile and Software Deferrals. You can set the deferral to block the major update while still given users the ability to install minor update (like 11.6.1 that came out today.) 

vinu_thankachan
Contributor

 

Specifically for 11.3 and onwards clients, use the following two keys 

enforcedSoftwareUpdateMajorOSDeferredInstallDelay

forceDelayedMajorSoftwareUpdates
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/devicemanagement/restrictions?changes=latest_minor

MrRoboto
Contributor III

On macOS Catalina or earlier you still can use the "software update --ignore" command. 

 

On macOS Big Sur you can use the new "com.apple.applicationaccess" preference keys to delay major OS updates for 90 days: set "forceDelayedMajorSoftwareUpdates" to true, set "enforcedSoftwareUpdateMajorOSDeferredInstallDelay" to 90.

 

On all versions of macOS you can create a Restricted Software entry in Jamf for "InstallAssistant". This prevents any user from running the Install macOS xxx application. However you can still call the startOSinstall command via Terminal.

emptypony61
New Contributor III

I am sorry I am really new to Mac still. Is this a plist entry I have to build or a command I need to script. Can you give me a little background on how to implement. I am already blocking "Install Monterey.app" but would like to still do big sur updates.