Sonoma DMG Issue

[ckulesza]

I am in early testing of the upgrade path we have been using for the last few years. Make a package with Composer and use that for the install. When I go and make the DMG with the Sonoma install, Composer errors out and cannot make the DMG. Anyone have another way to accomplish this or a different workflow?

[jamf-42]

download the pkg from Apple CDN and use that. No need to re-pack, just re-name.. 

Do you have a reason for this method of upgrade? The Apple way is to use Software Update etc etc (and thats less of an overhead) 

http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/26/09/042-58988-A_114Q05ZS90/yudaal746aeavnzu5qdhk26uhlphm3... 

[ckulesza]

Users are not admins on our Mac's and cannot authenticate the upgrade. It is the only path we have used for 3 years.

[Tribruin]

Look at https://github.com/grahampugh/erase-install 

That will download the installers and run the installation for the users. 

But, I would echo what @jamf-42 said, if at all possible, have your users go to Software Update and run the update from there. The download size if about half of the full installer. 

[obi-k]

I like to use the app, Download Full Installer. Nice little GUI app to grab full installers.

https://github.com/scriptingosx/DownloadFullInstaller/releases

https://scriptingosx.com/2021/06/download-full-installer/

[Hugonaut]

@ckuleszaMr.Macintosh provides the full installer downloads direct from apples cdns - https://mrmacintosh.com/macos-sonoma-full-installer-database-download-directly-from-apple/

[howie_isaacks]

Here's an idea I came up with. I created this script partly as a test to see if this would work and because I noticed that on my office network, sometimes using the "softwareupdate --fetch-full-installer --full-installer-version XX" command in a policy doesn't always work right. I used this recently to deploy the macOS Ventura 13.5.2 installer and the macOS Sonoma installer for several users. It's a very simple script. I use the Download Full Installer app to obtain the URL for the Install Assistant package that will install the macOS installer that I want. I put that into Parameter 4 in the Jamf policy. Parameter 5 is the version number. You can fill in anything you want into Parameter 5. This was just to name the downloaded package that would identify it as a package that deliver the macOS installer that I want. This has worked every time I have used it except while testing it when I fat fingered something.

#!/bin/zsh

#######################################################
# This script will download the desired macOS installer using the URL that we specify in parameter 4. To name the installer 
# package, specify the macOS version number (or what ever you want) in parameter 5. Example: 13.6. The downloaded package 
# will be named "13.6.pkg". It will be saved to /private/tmp. After the package is downloaded, the package is ran to place 
# the macOS installer in the Applications folder. The installer package is then deleted to free up drive space. 
#######################################################

# Use the Download Full Installer app from scriptingosx GitHub.
# https://github.com/scriptingosx/DownloadFullInstaller/releases

# Parameters for Jamf Pro
downloadURL="$4"  # Obtain this by right-clicking the macOS version you want from the list
macOSVersion="$5" # Example: 13.6

# Download destination
pathToInstaller=/private/tmp/$macOSVersion.pkg

### Download the macOS installer using the URL obtained from Download Full Installer app.
echo "Downloading macOS $macOSVersion installer package"
curl -o $pathToInstaller $downloadURL

### Extract the macOS install app from the downloaded package
installer -pkg $pathToInstaller -target /

### Delete the installer package to free up space
rm $pathToInstaller


exit 0

 I hate packaging macOS installers and uploading them to Jamf Pro. Having the Macs do the download is simpler and I don't have to update the package later. I just change the download URL and the name of the package in the parameters. I'm sure someone else has a better script but this works for me.

[orosales93]

I was able to create a Sonoma DMG successfully through Disk Utility but it had to be done from an Intel Mac. From arm64 devices it was failing to create the DMG from Disk Utility and Composer. Hopefully this helps.