Packaging and Deploying macOS Installer Monterey

[Will92]

I am having trouble packaging and deploying macOS Monterey. Should you upload the installer as a DMG or PKG file on JAMF? 

How do you deploy Monterey installer silently to a user's machine and have the installer run automatically without any user interaction?

[JosephRecendez]

I too would like to hear the steps others are using to package the installer. I tried the same as above with a DMG and a PKG and it is failing to deploy. 

[rossmclaren]

The best option for packaging up installers was created by the wonderful @talkingmoose !

His MegaPKGr Build Script is great for creating the installer package to place the macOS installer into the Applications folder, ready for use!

[Anonymous]

Yes, that's really the best way to update/upgrade. not least because of the huge installer withe more than 12 gigabyte 

[TheWarmAtlantic]

you can download the Monterey installer pre-packaged from Apple ready to upload to Jamf.
https://mrmacintosh.com/macos-12-monterey-full-installer-database-download-directly-from-apple/

[JosephRecendez]

@TheWarmAtlantic do you know how to download it without using MrMacintosh's website? Just for future reference, it would be nice to go directly to Apples site. Having it prepackaged is a wonderful option. Thank you for sharing. 

[daniel_behan]

I've been using this with some success.  https://github.com/grahampugh/erase-install/wiki

[JosephRecendez]

@daniel_behan , I would just like to thank you for pointing me towards this option. I have been playing with it for the past few hours and it looks very promising. 

Thanks! 😀

[Mo1]

Hey,

This method worked like a charm with updating iMacs from 12.1 & 12.5 to the latest version 12.6. However, I'm facing issues with upgrading from older versions like 10.15 & 10.14 to Monterey 12.6, I tried Jamf Remote and ran the script with Execute Commands and also ran it as a policy through Jamf cloud. Any thoughts?

[daniel_behan]

I have a Jamf Policy that installs the package from https://github.com/grahampugh/erase-install/releases

And the same policy runs the following Files and Processes

/Library/Management/erase-install/erase-install.sh --force-curl --reinstall

This would curl the latest Production macOS and perform an in-place upgrade.  Check out the usage suggestions for JAMF Pro at https://github.com/grahampugh/erase-install/wiki/8.-Use-in-Jamf-Pro

[McAwesome]

The easiest way is probably to use the built in softwareupdate command to download the appropriate installer on the machine.  This will pull the one you request down from Apple so you don't have to bother with uploading the installer in Jamf.  Plus if it gets interrupted it'll just start where it left off, which is a huge plus when you're talking about a 12+ GB installer and remote users.

The command for the current macOS Monterey installer should look like this

softwareupdate --fetch-full-installer --full-installer-version 12.0.1

 Just change the version number as new packages come out.

[JosephRecendez]

Thanks! This was one of the options that I am looking at. The real thing that I am trying to find is how can I download the install assistant.pkg. Like it's showing in your video. From what I can tell you have to use a third party tool as it can't be done through the command line. The reason I would like to have this is it makes it easier if I need to deploy it to a machine that's having issues running it through the command line. Having the .PKG file would enable me to be able to upload it to Jamf and push it out as a regular software package and then act upon it. If that makes sense! Thanks again for all the help.

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[aaronedmonton]

This worked for me. I changed the 12.0.1 to the 12.1 for my policy. 

Thanks !

[sgiesbrecht]

Use DMG as it will not autolaunch the installer.

Also if you PKG it, you will received errors (well at least you did with Big Sur)