REMOVE WiFi icon in Sonoma

[jalawton]

After weeks of working and looking for a solution with Sonoma NOT showing the WiFi through the control center to all my wired lab users, I felt you might stumble across this and need specifics to a solution. 

I disable the WiFi on my machines.  I do so by running:

     sudo networksetup -setnetworkserviceenabled Wi-Fi off

This will cause the WiFi icon to show an explanation point.  This is a nasty thing for users, making them think that they don't have internet when they do.  So to eliminate this, I created a Configuration Profile that I push out to these computers.

Here it is:

Then under Application & Custom Settings, I choose Upload and created the following:

The scope will be those computers running Sonoma. 

I hope you find this useful.

Jack Lawton
IT Manager/Lab Manager (5 labs - 100+ machines)
School of Journalism and New Media
University of Mississippi

[AJPinto]

Just as an FYI, the Wi-Fi icon showing in the menu bar is part of the NIST CIS L1 benchmark. For orgs trying to ensure they follow the benchmarks to the letter, they will want the Wi-Fi icon showing as hiding it can trigger a finding.

ID system_settings_wifi_menu_enable
References	800-53r5 CIS Benchmark CIS Controls V8 CCE • N/A • 2.4.1 (level 1) • 4.8 • 12.6 • CCE-93010-7

[jalawton]

Yes I can understand. But the whole reasoning behind the CIS is to disable unnecessary services on your devices. WiFi isn't necessary in my labs.
For my environment, this is an audit trigger that I would glad to explain why it was flagged.

As for why I posted, this wasn't something easy to understand on how to implement. Sonoma changed mannerisms from previous MacOS editions. Therefore, I thought others might find a concise solution helpful.

Jack Lawton
IT Manager
School of Journalism and New Media
The University of Mississippi
5 FARLEY HALL
University, MS 38677-1848
(662) 915-2046
jalawton@olemiss.edu | jnm.olemiss.edu<>

[joshuasee]

Is there any documented rhyme or reason to the integer to use for the WiFi key? You appear to be using 8 (ᵐᵃʸᵇᵉ ᵐᵃᵏᵉ ᵗʰᵉ ⁱᵐᵃᵍᵉˢ ᵃ ᵇⁱᵗ ˡᵃʳᵍᵉʳ ⁿᵉˣᵗ ᵗⁱᵐᵉ), a StackExchange post mentioned 24, and they both appear to work, but the fact they key is an integer rather than a boolen would seem to indicate more is going on here.

[jalawton]

As someone pointed out the Plist settings are very hard to read.  Here is its contents:

PLIST file containing key value pairs for settings in the specified domain

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyLists-1.0dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>UserSwitcher</key>
<integer>22</integer>
<key>WiFi</key> <integer>8</integer>
</dict>
</plist>

Have a great day.

[micmil]

Thank you, this worked on our Sonoma machines. Very annoying that Apple is once again shifting settings around for no obvious reason...

To clarify, the profile removes the Wifi icon from the Menu bar, not the Control Center. We can still access Wifi from the Control Center drop down, which is fine for us.

[dstranathan]

@jalawton is the UserSwitcher key related to the wi-fi menu bar icon too? This discussion suggests only setting the 

WiFi key

[jalawton]

Prior to Sonoma, I had a Configuration Profile that performed this function. Here is this profile that its scope was targeting all computers. Here is that Configuration Profile:

Name: Disable WiFi icon

Description: This disables the WiFi icon from showing on the user console.

Category:None
Level:Computer Level
Distribution Method: Install Automatically.

Under:
Application & Custom Settings
1 payload configured

Here is that payload:

Upload File
PLIST file containing key value pairs for settings in the specified domain
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyLists-1.0dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>AirPort.menu</key>
<false/>
<key>delaySeconds</key>
<real>2</real>
</dict>
</plist>

I hope this helps.