Workflow for macOS and iOS updates?

[jonlju]

Hi all,

Just wondering what you're doing in terms of macOS and iOS updates? Our Windows workflow is fully automated with a 7-day grace period before the computer will automatically restart to install updates. We really want to have something similar in place for our Macs but also iPhones/iPads if possible as they're lagging behind everytime a new update is released.

Right now what we're doing is trying to educate personnel and push them to update their devices which is not ideal to say the least...Is there a way to force them to update without interrupting their work by giving them a grace period? Does anyone have any suggestions or workflows they currently use for this that they'd like to share?

Thanks in advance!

[tjhall · Accepted solution]

No real way to enforce updates (although I think the lastest version of Jamf alluded to an API call). We use Nudge set to a 14 day update period. https://github.com/macadmins/nudge

[sdagley · Accepted solution]

@jonlju There are MDM commands to tell a Mac to update, with options to either allow deferral or to force the update, and you can trigger those either via the Jamf Pro console, or a script calling the Jamf Pro API. Unfortunately neither update option is extremely reliable, although Apple has mentioned fixing software update issues in the past few Monterey releases.

[tjhall · Accepted solution]

No real way to enforce updates (although I think the lastest version of Jamf alluded to an API call). We use Nudge set to a 14 day update period. https://github.com/macadmins/nudge

[sdagley · Accepted solution]

@jonlju There are MDM commands to tell a Mac to update, with options to either allow deferral or to force the update, and you can trigger those either via the Jamf Pro console, or a script calling the Jamf Pro API. Unfortunately neither update option is extremely reliable, although Apple has mentioned fixing software update issues in the past few Monterey releases.

[mm2270 · Accepted solution]

The sad state of affairs for macOS updates these days is that it's much more complicated to get them done in an automated fashion or without direct user involvement than it ever should be. Blame for this goes squarely on Apple. It's frankly an embarrassment how difficult it is. Windows admins now actually have something genuine to laugh at us about.

In the past it was a simple matter of running a sudo softwareupdate -i -a on computers. But then Apple took that all away for, some reason? So, you can't do that anymore. The API calls are there, but as mentioned are not as reliable as they should be.

Maybe Apple will actually fix this someday so our Macs can be reliably updated again.

[McGinn]

Nudge is awesome for maOS!

What about iOS updates?  Right not i am struggling to enforce iOS updates.