Erase all Content and Settings on multiple devices at one time.

[ChrisG50]

Good Afternoon,

I work at a school that uses Jamf Pro to manage our 2300ish Macbook Airs. All are 2020 M1s currently running on Sonoma. I'm having a lot of trouble finding a way to "wipe" multiple devices at one time and I have zero experience in using the Jamf API or even how to start using it. Everything is in prestage though and Apple School Manager.

So far I've tried scripting it but haven't had any luck. My guess is the only way I'll be able to do this is through the API as "wipe" device doesn't seem to be an option for one of the Action commands. 

I really don't want to have to reset over 2k macbooks this summer by hand. Anyone who has any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you,

[sdagley]

@ChrisG50 You'd probably have much better luck using Apple Configurator 2 and doing a DFU Restore. Here's a good guide for that process: https://mrmacintosh.com/restore-macos-firmware-on-an-apple-silicon-mac-boot-to-dfu-mode/

I'd also suggest you look into https://twocanoes.com/products/mac/dfu-blaster/ as a tool that will make it _much_ easier to put a Mac into DFU mode.

[agungsujiwo]

Hi @ChrisG50 
Here are the instructions from JAMF

https://www.jamf.com/blog/howto-erase-all-content-and-settings-macos-redeployment/

[karthikeyan_mac]

Hi @ChrisG50 

Please check @talkingmoose's Jamf Pro Computer EraseDevice.zsh.

Add computer ID's in line number 41 as mentioned in the script. Please test it with test devices.

Thanks.

[ChrisG50]

Thanks everyone for the suggestions I will look at each of these and give them a shot. 

@sdagley  Wouldn't this method still entell somewhat manually resetting each device? I'll look into it more though in case I'm missing something with this method.

@agungsujiwo Thank you for linking that. I found it once and couldn't for the life of me find it again. Though I have zero experience using Jamfs API or even where to start so I'll have to do my homework there.

@karthikeyan_mac I did try this one the other day but I modified it to try and reset any device inside of a specific smart group instead of by device ID. I'll test again without the modifications and try it by Device ID.

Thanks again all.

[sdagley]

@ChrisG50 It does involve touching each Mac but unless you're not planning on updating the installed version of macOS there is nothing that will be faster than doing a DFU Restore to wipe a large number of Macs, and DFU Blaster Pro will make that process even faster because it can instantly put a target Mac into DFU mode.

[ChrisG50]

@karthikeyan_mac Ok so I took what they did and modified it. I also added another script that renames the devices back to what they were using a script that installs an excel file with serial numbers and the device name structure we use. That script also installs another file called reset_done that the first script looks for to determine if the device has been reset or not. Lastly I have a script that will remove that file from all the devices when it is time to reset them.

Thanks for everyone's advice. Here are the links to what all I set up in case it helps someone else in the future.

Reset Device Script - Change lines 13, 16, 17, and 76 to match your own information.
Rename Device Script - Change lines 22 and 23 to match your own file. Also installs the file that stops Reset Device Script from running.
Pre-Reset Script - deletes the file that stops the Reset Device Script from running.


I just finished these up and tested them a few times, everything worked just fine. If anyone has some improvements or other alternatives please feel free to add them here.