macOS Updates and Upgrades - Resources on Software Update vs. Packaging

Grue
New Contributor III

Hello all!

This is something of a follow-up to a previous post of mine. We are starting the process of convincing our IT Security and Leadership teams that allowing our Macs to download OS updates from Apple is a better alternative to downloading/packaging/deploying the OS.app ourselves. To strengthen our case, I'm looking for resources to back up the claim that softwareupdate --fetch-full-installer is no longer recommended by Apple. I feel like I've heard from multiple people that the download/package method is going to be deprecated "soon" and that it can introduce problems that wouldn't be an issue if the Macs download the updates themselves, but I'm struggling to find any documentation from Apple or reputable third-parties on this. There's plenty on the how of managing OS updates via policy or mass action, but scant information as to why this method is superior to downloading and packaging it ourselves. Indeed, Jamf still recommends the download/package method for major OS releases.

So, if any of you excellent and admirable admins have any webpages or other resources handy that would help me bolster my arguments, I would really appreciate it! I've done my share of searching, but my Google-fu is coming up empty. Ideally there would be something from Apple or Jamf that indicates why, in clear language, packaging OS.app updates ourselves is Bad and Wrong, and why allowing the Macs to download the updates themselves is a better alternative.

Thanks, y'all!

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sdagley
Esteemed Contributor II

@Grue There's not really any indication that downloading full macOS installers is going away any time soon (and nobody should be packaging those these days as Apple already provides them in .pkg form (e.g. see https://mrmacintosh.com/macos-sonoma-full-installer-database-download-directly-from-apple/ for the various macOS Sonoma installer packages). There are no downloadable minor update installers, and there haven't been any since macOS Big Sur was released. Having to download a full 12 plus GB macOS installer to push to Macs for a minor macOS update versus the macOS software update mechanism being able to download a significantly smaller (the size varies depending on the delta from the existing version installed but if you're staying current it's usually less than 3 GB).