10 Nov November 2023 – MacAdmins Meeting
November 15th, 2023 – University of Utah, MacAdmins Meeting
The University of Utah, MacAdmins Meeting is held monthly virtually on the 3rd Wednesday of each month at 11 AM Mountain Time. Presentations cover Apple technology and integration in a heterogeneous university enterprise environment. This month’s meeting will be held on Wed, November 15th, 2023 at 11 AM MT and we will provide live broadcasts and archives that will be made available 2-3 days after the meeting.
GitOps for MacAdmins – Device Management with Terraform – Henry Stamerjohann, Zentral
As MacAdmins, our main goal is to provide our stakeholders and users with stable and resilient clients. Embracing a DevOps mindset in device management brings a focus on consistency, reliability, and accountability – the way we achieve this is by committing all device management changes to Git repositories. DevOps, originating from the integration of Development and Operations, involves automating and improving collaboration between software development and IT operations. DevOps principles are applicable to MacAdmins, or Mac Administrators, seeking to enhance the efficiency of managing macOS or other Apple systems. Automation is a core tenet, enabling the streamlining of tasks like software deployment and system configuration. Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) practices can be adapted for deploying applications and updates on Mac systems and Apple devices. Infrastructure as Code (IaC) allows MacAdmins to define and maintain the desired state of macOS systems, ensuring consistency. Collaboration with developers, communication across teams, monitoring system health, and version control for scripts contribute to the overall improvement in Mac system management. The adoption of security measures, including regular updates and access controls, aligns with DevOps practices to enhance the security posture of Mac systems. 
In this session, we’ll explore the official Zentral Terraform provider for device management and dive deep into CI/CD pipelines for audit trails and automation. The Zentral GitOps workflows we present provide a solid foundation for reliability and compliance.
About Henry Stamerjohann
Henry Stamerjohann based in Germany, is one of the co-founders of Zentral, an open-source event hub that provides a unified view of device management and reporting. Zentral bridges the gap between managing best-of-breed open-source tools like Osquery, Google Santa, and Munki, seamlessly integrating with existing MDM solutions. Whether you’re sticking with your current MDM like Jamf or adopting Zentral’s new declarative open-source MDM solution, the workflows are rooted in modern GitOps practices
- Video – To view the archived presentation video, click here.
- Slides – To view the archived presentation slides, click here.
SupportApp for MacAdmins – Jordy Wittemen, Root3
This presentation will introduce you to the Support App from Root3. The Support App is a menu bar utility to help connect users with IT in several different ways such as glanceable device information or easy-to-access company resources. The app is highly customizable and MDM independent and can provide many workflows helpful for both users and IT. Branding options allow admins to adopt the organization’s identity while maintaining the native macOS look and feel. The app is designed with Apple’s modern UI language called SwiftUI, which is easy to read and with very little code. The presentation will cover why we created the Support App, the fundamentals, and more advanced workflows using Support App Extensions and SupportHelper.
The Support app features a menu bar icon with customizable images, diagnostic information display (e.g., computer name, macOS version, last reboot, storage usage), and buttons for shortcuts to applications, links, or commands. The configuration is optimized for Mobile Device Management (MDM) solutions, supporting custom Configuration Profiles for easy deployment. Additionally, the app integrates with software updates, showing the current macOS version and providing notifications for available updates. The configuration allows customization of various elements, including title, logo, color, and footer text. The app also supports a welcome screen for first-time users and provides integration with Apple’s Software Update for seamless system maintenance.
About Jordy Witteman
Jordy Witteman is an Apple Principal Consultant at Root3 based in The Netherlands. He started working professionally with Apple products in 2010 as an Apple Premium Reseller and joined Root3 in 2017. As a consultant, his daily job is managing Apple devices, implementing MDM solutions, and driving innovation with their customers to work with Apple products the way it is intended to. To provide the best possible user experience, Root3 creates its own software solutions where it sees a gap. For Root3’s software projects, Jordy is responsible for the SwiftUI development work. They released the Support App in 2020 and just earlier this year their automated app patch management solution for macOS called App Catalog.
- Video – To view the archived presentation video, click here.
- Slides – To view the archived presentation slides, click here.
Scripting the Unscriptable Update – Ross Matsuda, Ntiva
In this session, Ross will follow up on his MacAdmins 2023 presentation “Scripting the Unscriptable”, diving into GUI scripting via AppleScript. We’ll review the basic groundwork of some common GUI script tasks and take a look at the unique challenge presented by the launch of macOS Sonoma and how that affects automation surrounding the Software Update preference pane.
macOS GUI scripting, also known as User Interface (UI) scripting, involves automating interactions with the graphical user interface elements of applications on a macOS system. It allows you to control and manipulate applications by simulating user interactions such as clicks, keystrokes, and menu selections. This is particularly useful when the target applications do not support direct AppleScript automation or when you need to automate tasks that are not scriptable.
About Ross Matsuda
Ross Matsuda is an Apple Systems Engineer with Ntiva, where he manages a fleet of thousands of Apple devices across hundreds of organizations in dozens of industries. He also authors a technology blog focusing on the Apple platform, Sudoade. He has worked in the Apple ecosystem professionally since 2008, in roles ranging from customer service, consumer technical support, enterprise support, and systems administration.
- Video – To view the archived presentation video, click here.
- Slides – To view the archived presentation slides, click here.
Open Discussion
Questions, comments, problems, and fixes.
Directions
Due to the coronavirus (aka COVID-19) crisis, this meeting will not be held in person but will currently be done virtually using Zoom video communications architecture.
- Require a Password to Join This meeting will require a password to join the meeting. Information will be emailed via a campus internal list, but if you are external and want to attend the meeting, please use the contact us form to receive details. Else, the archive of the meeting will be available 2-3 days after the live meeting.
- Waiting Room When joining the meeting you will be placed in the Waiting Room by default and the hosts will give you access to the live meeting.
- Miscellaneous We will also implement other settings and safeguards to secure the meeting.
Archived Presentation(s)
- Archives of the presentations will be available on this web page.
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