A blog about archives, storage and everything

Category: Programming

  • Use the SOFA feed to check if SimpleMDM devices needs updates

    I wrote a “simple” bash script to check SimpleMDM device list by API and check if any devices need updates and/or are compatible with the latest macOS. Of course, it will output some CSVs for fun and profit. Send to clients, managers, security professionals and be well.

    Note: It was a quick hack and for reasons I made 3 output CSVs for testing various presentations of the data that combines the full SimpleMDM device list and matches the macOS with available updates and max supported versions. There may be errors or omissions. Please test. Use and modify. I know I will. This is a test. Just a test.

    The script is in my GitHub repo

    Fetching SimpleMDM device list...
Downloading SOFA feed...
✅ Exported:
  → Full device CSV: /Users/Shared/simplemdm_devices_full_2025-07-30.csv
  → Outdated devices CSV: /Users/Shared/simplemdm_devices_needing_update_2025-07-30.csv
  → Supported macOS per model: /Users/Shared/simplemdm_supported_macos_models_2025-07-30.csv
✅ Export complete.

    References:

    SOFA MacAdmins Getting Started

    https://sofa.macadmins.io/getting-started.html

    https://github.com/macadmins/sofa/tree/main/tool-scripts

    SimpleMDM API docs

    https://api.simplemdm.com/v1#retrieve-one-dep-device

    squirke1977 / simpleMDM_API

    https://github.com/squirke1977/simpleMDM_API/blob/master/device_details.py

  • Automate it! Hedge API example apps

    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).

    [wpvideo HfiKMSct ]

    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.