People ask me all the time what the most significant difference is between supporting an MDM for Macs and supporting Windows. I’ve thought about the answer a lot, and it comes down to the collaborative nature of the Apple support community. One underrated community aspect is the sheer number of open-source tools available. The sheer number of tools freely available by the community for the community is amazing!
As admins, we strive to make endpoints more secure and streamlined. This often requires acquiring new products and services. Still, it often comes down to Finance signing off on the expense and information Security, ensuring it doesn’t do anything improper with the data. Management approving the implementation of a new tool, not to mention your time making a Proof of Concept (in non-production of course!). This often comes alongside dealing with account representatives, solution engineers, and a slew of other hurdles they are concerned with.
Enter open source! I used to spend hours making the dmg and pkg files to do everything I needed to keep my users up-to-date, secure, compliant, etc. It was tedious, stressful, and nerve-wracking. Tools like Nudge, deviceHealthCheck, S.U.P.E.R.M.A.N., Setup-Your-Mac, Installomator, App-Auto-Patch, swiftDialog, Jamf Assistant, and so many others are available at your fingertips. Finance loves them because they don’t have an added, often unbudgeted, expense. InfoSec is happy because they can examine and alter the source code to fit their needs or desires. IT management is on board because it makes them look good that their team is doing more with no additional resources and very little technical overhead. Finally, and arguably the most important, YOU LOOK GREAT! I like to say that my job is to automate as many things as possible so I can focus on fun projects and concepts. Here’s a list of tasks I no longer need to do because of automation with open-source tools:
- Manually upload app installers into Jamf (Installomator/App-Auto-Patch)
- Follow a long checklist for new computer setups (still verify everything with Jamf records) (Setup-Your-Mac)
- Manually remind people to install macOS updates (Nudge)
- Perform a bunch of checks in Terminal to see what may be wrong with a computer (deviceHealthCheck)
- Run policy/recon/custom triggers from Self Service (jamfAssistant)
NOTE: swiftDialog is a framework for notifications and dialog boxes used in many listed tools.
In addition to using these tools for automation and easing my own workload, they also teach you a plethora of new skills! Play with these tools, read the documentation, learn how they work, and your own skillset improves. I could continue why I love using open-source tools, but I’ll close out with this simple saying. Move Fast, Break Things, Have Fun!
