Cache Mojave Installer

ekarazhov
New Contributor III

Hello all. I have created a policy that pushes Mojave package to a device. I created that package with Composer and it should go to the Application Folder. Logs for the policy shows that policy ran with out any errors, however Mojave Package not showing up in Application Folder. Any one seen that behavior before?

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

hdsreid
Contributor III

@ekarazhov if you want it to be installed in the applications folder, make a new policy, select the mojave package, and select "install cached" from the package options. this will install the package that you cached, making it visible to the user, with a /Applications/Install macOS Mojave.app being put in there as expected.

I think your confusion may be due to how controlling OS install differs from a normal package. normally i cache a package to have it ready for a planned installation policy being implemented. then i create a policy to install the cached package, and it installs. with the OS, you need to cache the package, install the package, then run an additional script to actually run the application to do the installation.

so for mojave, i have done it a few ways. when i did the package, it was
1) policy to cache package (places the .pkg in Waiting Room)
2) policy to install cached package (puts Install macOS Mojave.app in the Applications folder), and run a script after that calls

/Applications/Install macOS Mojave.app/Contents/Resources/startosinstall --agreetolicense

for in place upgrades.

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7 REPLIES 7

hdsreid
Contributor III

did you cache a package or did you deploy the mojave installer and just haven't ran a script to call it once installed? if you cached it, the pkg file will be saved in /Library/Application Support/JAMF/Waiting Room/
if you deployed it to be installed immediately, its gonna be a problem with the way the package is setup in Composer. Can you provide a screenshot of the file hierarchy in Composer?

last suggestion would just be to use the dmg saved by the python installmacos script, instead of using a pkg, cache it locally, and then run a script later on to mount DMG and run installer. i found this to be the easiest way when I upgraded about 60 machines at end of last year

ekarazhov
New Contributor III
if you cached it, the pkg file will be saved in /Library/Application Support/JAMF/Waiting Room/

You were correct, its there. I guess what confuses me is why sometimes its going there and sometimes its going to Application. Idealy I would want to push the package to the application folder and then install it from there via a different policy. But I am open to the best practice for doing that suggestions. I deleted the package from Composer, so I can't post screen shots.

hdsreid
Contributor III

@ekarazhov if you want it to be installed in the applications folder, make a new policy, select the mojave package, and select "install cached" from the package options. this will install the package that you cached, making it visible to the user, with a /Applications/Install macOS Mojave.app being put in there as expected.

I think your confusion may be due to how controlling OS install differs from a normal package. normally i cache a package to have it ready for a planned installation policy being implemented. then i create a policy to install the cached package, and it installs. with the OS, you need to cache the package, install the package, then run an additional script to actually run the application to do the installation.

so for mojave, i have done it a few ways. when i did the package, it was
1) policy to cache package (places the .pkg in Waiting Room)
2) policy to install cached package (puts Install macOS Mojave.app in the Applications folder), and run a script after that calls

/Applications/Install macOS Mojave.app/Contents/Resources/startosinstall --agreetolicense

for in place upgrades.

ekarazhov
New Contributor III
so for mojave, i have done it a few ways. when i did the package, it was 1) policy to cache package (places the .pkg in Waiting Room) 2) policy to install cached package (puts Install macOS Mojave.app in the Applications folder), and run a script after that calls

So for some reason installing pkg from the Waiting Room didn't work for me, it was always complaining that the package was not found. I ended up speaking with JAMF and they helped me create a .dmg that got pushed to Application Folder and then a different policy that installed it.

tcandela
Valued Contributor II

@ekarazhov what was the process that the JAMF person you talked to give you for placing the mojave.app installer in the /applications folder? for the policy that did the installing, was it a script you used?

GabeShack
Valued Contributor III

We usually captured the installer in composer (after downloading it to a machine) so that it could be pushed to the Applications folder on others computers, then using the script above triggered the install. This is how the MacOS Installer likes to work from what I understand.

Gabe Shackney
Princeton Public Schools

Gabe Shackney
Princeton Public Schools

tcandela
Valued Contributor II

@gshackney you just used this one liner in the script? (See below)

I don't really need to have it in self service, but for some users who have no idea what to do, its good to have the ease of SS . No difference since the use can just manually run it from /applications

Applications/Install macOS Mojave.app/Contents/Resources/startosinstall --agreetolicense