Imaging macs
Hello,
Just wanted to ask if thse who are imaging macs.
What they are using and how they are doing it as with Apple pushing DEP
Thanks
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Answers (2)
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Posted by:
chucksteel
6 years ago
Imaging macOS is basically no longer an option. I don't believe that Apple will release any new macOS hardware capable of using NetBoot and I wouldn't advise taking time to try and make imaging work via other methods. If you aren't willing or able to implement DEP and MDM, then your options are becoming limited. Bootstrappr is one option that has gained traction - https://github.com/munki/bootstrappr
If you can't setup DEP for some reason (e.g. not available in your country) then you can still use a mobile device management platform that supports macOS (unfortunately, Quest's KACE MDM does not). It will need to be installed manually on systems, however.
Our current process looks like this:
Unbox computer
Boot it up
Go through Setup Assistant which enrolls device in our MDM (Mosyle in our case)
Mosyle installs the KACE agent and sets some settings (creates local admin user, some prefs, etc.)
KACE handles pretty much everything else
Since we have a DeployStudio server setup with all of our macOS apps packaged, I created a script that will install DS on the client and launch it. We use automation on DS to automatically launch a workflow that installs all of our standard software instead of using managed installs for everything.
Comments:
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Thanks for the info / reply. You leave Mosyle on the mac with Kace? how do you find that (i mean they both would be running at same time)? I asked about Kace SMA becoming MDM but heard nothing. - markc0 6 years ago
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Yes, we have both the KACE Agent and Mosyle running on the systems. For lab systems we use Mosyle for managing the computers, but as far as software distribution almost everything else is handled via KACE.
I spoke with several folks at the KACE UserKon about their macOS strategy and wasn't very satisfied with the responses I got. - chucksteel 6 years ago-
Thanks, i guess im in the same boat you was in. Most of our devices in the sma are macs and it becoming more and more apparent that i need a mdm system. - markc0 6 years ago
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I highly recommend joining the MacAdmins Slack community. There is a general MDM channel that contains a lot of useful information, and there are channels for many MDM providers with specific information:
https://macadmins.software/slack.html - chucksteel 6 years ago
Posted by:
nahrens
6 years ago
We are using Jamf as our MDM. We are enrolled with Apple DEP so when we purchase the new Macs, DEP automatically enrolls them into Jamf, we power on the Macs, they recognize they are being managed by the Jamf MDM, pulls all the policies down that we specify (in our case, 3rd party software and KBOX agent), and we hand it to the user. We could just give it to the user shrink wrapped but we prefer to test things before handing over.
Comments:
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Hi, you have both Jamf agent and the mac kace agent on the same machine? How do you find that ? - markc0 6 years ago
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Yes we do. We use Kbox only for inventory on the Mac side and we use Jamf for patching and everything else, so it's not like the two systems are fighting each other. Each one works as you'd expect them to work individually, really no hiccups at all with the two running side by side. - nahrens 6 years ago
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I've been trying to install KACE via Jamf, and it acts like everything installs fine but isn't running at all. did you have to do anything special to install KACE with JAMF? - otakujosh 4 years ago
