[kind of OT] how to set up Reposed (and Margarita) on a Mac.

rseide
Contributor

I've been looking for instructions on how to set up Reposado and Margarita on a Mac.

Everything I'm finding are instructions on how to set it up on Linux, even though Reposado is advertised as being able to be run on any platform. I realize Unix and Linux are similar but I am constantly running into issues where there is a Linux command that's not available in Unix or the directories are in different locations. I can't come up with specific examples right now, but all I know is I'm not able to figure this out. I've used this tutorial for a lot of help but it's still not exactly what I am looking for: https://clburlison.com/reposado-guide/ - I am ok with Unix, definitely not an expert by any means, so I am not sure why I am struggling so much with this.

I'm trying to set this up on a Mac because I work in the gov't and I'd have to consult with multiple teams to get a "test" Linux VM set up and then a bunch of other red tape to get access to it, along with certain windows when I can test. I just started here and the person whose position I took over for ordered a bunch of Apple hardware to update and redesign our current Casper environment. Part of my plan is to move away from Apple's SUS and towards Reposado because the gov't needs to have granular control over what updates are available to the Mac clients. I understand this is being deprecated in Server App 5.2, which is the current version (which we have not upgraded to yet). All of this hardware was purchased a few months ago and is brand-new (not macOS Sierra). All of the Apple hardware that is in our Casper environment is controlled and accessed by me. Therefore it's much more efficient if I could get Reposado up and running, and testing, on our new Apple hardware.

Even JAMF's NetSUS appliance is Linux only.

Following that guide I posted above, I managed to get Reposado set up to download updates (this is on a test MacBook Pro I have with enough hard drive space, I think). That's as far as I've gotten. But I think the set up could be cleaner.

I know I don't have a specific question. I am more looking for any tutorials or guidance on how to set this up on a Mac and then incorporating this into our JSS.

I managed to get some help from a few folks on the MacAdmins #reposado channel on Slack but was hoping to get a little more help here.

8 REPLIES 8

kstrick
Contributor III

I haven't gotten a straight mac based reposado working,
but i was able to get it up by using Docker... so if you just can't get it working under Mac OS, Setting up a docker container is an option
I'm not sure if this is the one I used-- [https://hub.docker.com/r/macadmins/reposado/](link URL)
or
[https://github.com/MScottBlake/docker-margarita](link URL)
[https://github.com/MScottBlake/docker-reposado](link URL)
(Create a a separate storage container for the data, share between both reposado and maragarita)
or you can run the jamf netsus in a vm?

gregneagle
Valued Contributor

Reposado works just fine on OS X and OS X Server.

https://github.com/wdas/reposado/blob/master/docs/getting_started.md

Details on configuring Apache depend on the exact version of OS X Server.

If you don't know how to set up a website on OS X Server, you will struggle setting up reposado.

All the reposado tools do is copy files from Apple's server to your local server. Apache serves the files to your clients.

rseide
Contributor

@kstrick and @gregneagle thanks for your responses.

I set up a Mac as a MAMP server a very long time ago from finding clear instructions on how to do it online but I couldn't do it from heart now. If I had clear documentation on how to have Apache talk to Reposado, I feel pretty confident I can set it up. But, like I mentioned, I seem to have difficulty finding documentation that works.

I understand what Resposado does, but setting it up is a little different. I have Reposado set up on my test Mac so far as to have it currently downloading all the available updates from Apple.

Is setting up Apache differ from Server 5.1 to 5.2? We are currently running Server app 5.1, I believe (I'm at home right now but I know it's a version of 5). According to MacTracker, there are 7 versions of Server 5. Is Apache different on all versions of 5?

I apologize for basic questions and instructions. I haven't had to set up a web server in a long time. I appreciate the help in advance.

rseide
Contributor

I found this and will try it tomorrow: [https://denisonmac.wordpress.com/2013/02/28/running-margarita-in-apache/](link URL)

rseide
Contributor

Well I managed to get it up and kind of running.

I had to upgrade python by downloading it here: https://www.python.org/downloads/

So far, Margarita is finishing installing/downloading. When I ran the python margarita.py command, I left all of the defaults. So when now when I go to http://0.0.0.0:8089, I saw that Margarita loaded but there were no updates showing. After I created a new branch called "Test", I could then see all of the updates. But, Margarita still looks like it's not finished doing what it needs to do (in Terminal). It's been running for several minutes. Is that normal?

At any rate, I managed to get this far so now I need to figure out what IP and FQDN to use and to test a Mac to point to it and see if it can see and download the updates.

I'm sure I could've set this up a cleaner way and in fact, I am not so sure about the ownership and permissions of some of the Reposado and Margarita files and directories.

Btw, I have set this up on a MacBook Pro running 10.10.5 w/o the Server app installed.

gregneagle
Valued Contributor

You certainly did not need to upgrade Python. Reposado runs just fine on Python 2.6-2.7.x. It might even run OK on Python 2.5.

And now that you've replaced the system Python with third-party, you might break other things you want to use in the future.

rseide
Contributor

According to this: https://github.com/jessepeterson/margarita - I would've had to install JSON for Python prior to 2.6 so my version was before that. So, that's why I upgraded python and that link I posted about was what I found to update it.

By the way, I don't think https://www.python.org is a "3rd party site". I did a Google search on how to install or upgrade Python on a Mac and the first 4 results all pointed to that site to install or upgrade Python. I guess time will tell.

gregneagle
Valued Contributor

The Python that ships with OS X 10.10 definitely has the json module installed.

If you were using a really old OS X Server (running 10.5 or earlier), you could install the simplejson module. But I don't think you were doing that.