Technology Blog
MunkiReport 5.8 was released today and primarily includes compatibility with Python 3 and PHP 8.
Just like last year’s release of 5.7, this new version of MunkiReport requires admins to deploy a specific Python package to clients before updating.
It will also likely require a coordinated update on your web server to enable PHP 8.
Read on for the details…
Apple announced the deprecation of Python 2 with the release of macOS 10.15 Catalina in 2019, however MacAdmins have never known when it would actually be removed. The general expectation was with macOS 13 due out later this year, but Apple surprised us when it published the macOS Monterey 12.3 Beta Release Notes last week.
Open source projects have been planning for this eventuality, with many having already completed the transition to Python 3 by shipping their own version or using clever code to locate an appropriate version already installed.
MunkiReport is no exception, development of version 6 is well underway, but is not ready yet. Thanks to the quick work by a number of talented contributors to the project, an update to version 5 has been released to bridge the gap until MR6 with Python 3 is ready.
However there is a major change admins will need to account for, so read on for the details.
Historically I have always configured our MunkiReport Machine Groups with a configuration profile delivered via Munki. However starting with macOS Big Sur, the ability to manage profiles from the command line was removed meaning Munki can no longer install or remove them.
One option would have been to move these configuration profiles to our MDM as I did for our other profiles. However I didn’t want to duplicate the effort of managing computer group assignments in both Munki and MDM.
Since maintaining groups in Munki to aid in software deployments is still required, I decided to use NoPkgs to configure our MunkiReport Machine Groups. This way they will be automatically changed whenever a computer gets moved to a different group (via included manifest). Read on for the details.
MunkiReport version 4, released over a year ago, added support for multiple customizable Dashboards. Previous releases allowed an admin to configure the homepage with selected widgets, but that was all.
The added Dashboard functionality gives admins the ability to have an unlimited number of customized views with particular widgets for different reporting needs that can be switched between using a menu or keyboard hotkeys.
This post was originally supposed to accompany my presentation at the Houston Apple Admins meetup in September 2019, but obviously I got a little behind.
The information is still relevant so read on if you are interested.
We need to tightly control the version of InDesign (ID) and InCopy (IC) in use here at the newspaper. As such we disable the Apps Panel within the Creative Cloud Desktop Application (CCDA) and exclusively use Munki to install Adobe Creative Cloud applications.
Yesterday we transitioned from InDesign CC 2014 to CC 2019 in a single day and I wanted to share the details in case it might be useful to others. Read on if you are interested in how we did it.
Another component to my DetectX Swift (DTXS) Management License rollout this week is the ability for users to run a scan and have the results be sent to MunkiReport immediately. This could be useful anytime I don’t have easy access to a user’s computer and am having to walk them through things over the phone or via Slack and I want to verify the results of the scan remotely.
I accomplished this with an on demand Munki NoPkg that any standard user can easily run via Managed Software Center. Read on for the details.
This week I began rolling out DetectX Swift (DTXS) with a Management License across our fleet. I first learned of DTXS earlier this year thanks to Zack McCauley and his DetectX Module for MunkiReport.
McCauley covers one option for automatic scans in his excellent Deploying DetectX Swift with Munki article using Outset and a boot-every script. He also helpfully included a sample LaunchDaemon in the module repo, however neither scans as frequently as I’d like. Read on for how I decided to handle automatic hourly scans and reporting.