Category Archives: Automation

Munki makes MDM manageable

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How to deploy applications using munki and simplemdm

You want to deploy apps to Macs but you also want to keep them up to date, fear not, we have a way. If you are using SimpleMDM for Mac management but hate the way MDMs deploy applications then listen up it’s easy(*) to set up Munki and use the power Autopkg to deploy and update all your apps. Note: SimpleMDM also offers a short list of curated apps to deploy without any extra setup but these instructions are for those who want to choose the apps they want to deploy. If that’s you then read on.

Managed Software Centre is the AppStore for all your apps you want your Macs to have

SimpleMDM: The basics

Macs are enrolled into SimpleMDM, then assigned to Groups. Groups have profiles assigned to them to enforce and escrow FileVault or set other policies. Simple enough, right?

Ok, what about apps?

SimpleMDM Category setting for a Munki’s Managed Software Centre

When you have apps in your Catalog you can assign a Munki category to the applications to make it show up in a nice group using Managed Software Centre (the client facing app).

With Apps in your Catalog you can manage them with Assignment Groups which are created as Munki (or not-Munki aka Standard). Next select Managed or Self-Serve, two concepts which make sense to Munki admins. One set of apps is required and will be installed without asking, and the other group is presented to the end user to choose as needed (they’re optional).

API key options. Allow Munki plugin access

API key

How do we get applications we want into SimpleMDM? Two ways exist. Import them manually and deploy via MDM or setup up Autopkg. For this we need the API key. Note: Only the munki plugin permissions are needed. Put the key into the Autopkgr.app SimpleMDM integration or set them as an environment variable and use autopkg in Terminal.

Autopkgr app choose autopkg recipes to use

Select recipes using Autopkgr (Linde Group) from the curated list of recipes created by IT Admins around the world or create your own recipes. What used to be a painstakingly difficult process by hand is now much easier with Recipe Robot by Elliot Jordan to help fish out the AppCast / Sparkle / Download URLs and transform into a nice autopkg recipe to be used by Munki (and ingested into SimpleMDM). 

autopkg run -v Postlab.munki.recipe  -k MUNKI_REPO_PLUGIN="SimpleMDMRepo" -k MUNKI_REPO="" -k extract_icon=True
MunkiImporter
Using API key provided by environment variable.
MunkiImporter: Using repo lib: MunkiLib
MunkiImporter:         plugin: SimpleMDMRepo
Managed Software Centre notification

Managed Software Centre

Once Macs are enrolled and added to a SimpleMDM Group with the Munki assignment then the Managed Software Centre app will allow users to use the Self-Serve portal to install optional apps. Managed apps will install invisibly in the background.

The beauty of this integration is that Munki is awesome and works well. It is battle tested by many companies and organizations around the world. Using autopkg and its recipes to check for updates allows for a seamless automation of new apps into your catalog and then onto your fleet. Updated Macs are happy Macs.

Reference:

SimpleMDM Munki integration blog post

Automate those apps. Get some robot love 🤖 ❤️!

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If only one person needs an application then I think about using Munki to deploy that app. If more than one person should have it then Munki is definitely the way to automate app deployment. And really, if you’re going to take the time to download an app from a website, mount a disk image or un-pack a ZIP archive, run an installer, type an admin password, close that installer … then for the love of all that is good just put the app into your Munki repo and be done with it. Automate it.

Using Munki to solve problems makes sense. Automation helps everyone in this case. But if you’re putting in one off applications into your Munki repo more often than you need to, you need to get those apps into Autopkg. Using Autopkg recipes to download the latest apps and put them into your Munki repo automatically is an automation love fest, but if your apps don’t have recipes what are you going to do? Manually add your apps to Munki? No way. We need a robot 🤖❤️. Recipe robot, that is.

Using Recipe Robot we can build Autopkg recipes for most apps then add the recipes to the Autopkg community to enjoy. Everyone wins.

I recently created recipes for two important apps in my media workflow: Kyno and Hedge. I’ll show an example of this workflow using Recipe Robot and Munki Admin to demonstrate the workflow.

Step 1. Feed the robot.

Drag and and drop the app you want to create your Autopkg recipes.

RecipeRobot-FeedMe

Step 2. Watch the robot do it’s work

RecipeRobot-start

Step 3. Robot is done. Recipes made.

RecipeRobot-Done

Various type of recipes can be made. I chose download and munki because those are what I am using to automate adding apps to my Munki repo. But there are other options: jss, Filewave, or “install” for example.

reciperobot-options.jpg

Step 4. Run those Recipes

You can use your recipes locally with Autopkg. Run them in Terminal or use Autopkgr , a very nice GUI app for automating the collection and scheduling of recipes. Note: Autopkg and Munki can all be run via cli (command line interface) but for this demo we are showing the GUI apps that are there provided by outstanding members of the community. Many Thanks to them and the contributors to their projects.

Autopkgr-notification

Autopkgr app can send notifications in macOS, emails, or post to your Slack group.

Step 5. See the recipes, Use them wisely

MunkiAdmin-Recently ChangedPKGS

Here is an example of newly imported Kyno and Hedge apps in our Munki repo (via Munki Admin GUI).

MunkiAdmin-Description

Add a display name, choose which catalogs the apps will reside in, and check that the description will help explain what the app is.

References:

Elliot Jordan – Autopkg talk at MacDevOps:YVR

https://youtu.be/Q_cvgGtJ71M

Elliot Jordan – Recipe Robot talk at MacDevOps:YVR

https://youtu.be/DgjO1mfMHtI

 

Automate it! Hedge API example apps

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Quick post to talk about some fun I’ve been having with the new Hedge API.

Background: Hedge is an awesome app for securely copying Camera Cards to multiple destinations to ensure data integrity and safety of the original footage. Hedge is one part of a workflow I build for my clients. Hedge is the first step in ensuring an easy and convenient transition from the cameras to the SAN to the tape archive powered by Archiware P5.

TL;DR

Using AppleScript and Automator I have built some apps to quickly set the file naming and data integrity preferences as we want them to be.  And also quickly change them to something else depending on the needed workflow.

API or Clickety click click

Copying camera cards copies is what we use Hedge for. Certain preferences like logs or receipts are great to have to ensure the copy succeeded. Also file naming conventions are good to have. Set and forget, right? But what if you did forget? Or if you’re new and don’t know the convention or you don’t read documentation. What do we do? One way to solve this is build an app that launches Hedge and sets the correct preferences. And if we want to copy USB sticks or something else then we can launch another app that prepares Hedge with a different set of preferences.  For extra points we just ask the user what they want with a nice dialog box and just do that.

hedge

Automator

Automator is awesome. Create workflows, apps, or services amongst many other things. For more info on Automator check out Apple’s official docs or this unofficial website of resources.

Automator.png

For this quick testing I used two AppleScripts with different preferences and settings defined. One for camera card copying and another for USB sticks that need different preferences set. The fancy automator app just calls the needed AppleScript. Make two apps and you have two different workflows without having to explain to users which prefs get set for what, or how the file naming should go to be consistent.

Example 1: Cam Card script (snippet)Hedge-Automator.png

Example 2: USB card copy (snippet)

Hedge-ApplesriptUSB.png

 

Automator can do many things. Call AppleScripts, Run shell scripts, pop-up dialog boxes etc and this is just a simple example of building single purpose apps to set Hedge via its new API. Very cool and so many possibilities.

AppleScript

What if we could just build one app which asked the user what they wanted to do? We can do that!

AppleScript-DialogQuit.png

Choose “Cam” and the appropriate preferences are set and file naming conventions applied.

Hedge-CamCard-Prefs.png

Hedge-CamCard-FileNaming.png

Choose “USB” and a different set of preferences are set. Magic.

Hedge-USBCard-Prefs.png

Hedge-USBCard-FileNaming.png

How do we do this? This piece of AppleScript chains an action to a response or button choice. Run a script or choose an action. The possibilities are endless. And thanks to the Hedge API we can set preferences on or off, and set destinations or many other things. We can do them programmatically and we can ensure they are set correctly. Fun times!

Hedge-API-Script-Quit.png

AppleScript vs POSIX:

I updated my AppleScript code with the POSIX path of the scripts it wants to load. It’s a major improvement! I had packaged up my scripts and my Hedge Setup app with munkipkg then deployed through Munki but when I demoed it — nothing worked…. because the start up disk drive was named something else. The fix: set a variable to be the POSIX path (Unix path in AppleScript friendly format).

Scripting and App Building

I hope that helped. We can do a lot of the same things with Python and in my testing I was working with a script written in python3 but since that’s not shipping on Macs in the current version of macOS by default (not yet!) then AppleScript was the quickest way to get this done. This is not restricted to AppleScript. Using Automator and your favourite scripting language you can build apps for your clients, co-workers, friends and family.

A note about the Hedge API:

There are two major calls I use in my scripts “setDestination” and “setPreferences”

The “setDestination” call looks like this:

open ‘hedge://actions?json=[{“setDestination”:{“path”:”/Volumes/LaCie/Testing/Test1″}},{“token”:”1234567890123345555″}]’

Note: the token is generated for you when you have a Pro license.

The “the setPreferences” call uses plist keys.

Note: I’ll have more say about using the actual Hedge API after it is officially announced.