Packaging every version of each piece of software managed can be incredibly time consuming. Without automation, it would take an inordinate amount of time to download, package, test, and deploy software at a cadence that matches how often third party vendors patch their tools. Autopkg can be one of the biggest time savers for those charged with managing Apple devices. We’ve discussed it in previous episodes but in this episode we’ll talk to Manuela Muñoz Bocanegra about her studies of autopkg at a more academic level.
Hosts:
- Tom Bridge - @tbridge777
- Charles Edge - @cedge318
- Marcus Ransom - @marcusransom
Guests:
-
Manuela Muñoz Bocanegra - LinkedIn
Transcript:
Click here to read the transcript (brought to you this week by Alectrona)
Links:
- Pattern Recognition (Blue Ant): Gibson, William: 9780425198681: Amazon.com: Books
- GitHub - grahampugh/jamf-upload: Scripts for uploading packages to Jamf Cloud
- GitHub - autopkg/autopkg: Automating packaging and software distribution on macOS.
Sponsors:
If you're interested in sponsoring the Mac Admins Podcast, please email podcast@macadmins.org for more information.
Get the latest about the Mac Admins Podcast, follow us on Twitter! We're @MacAdmPodcast!
The Mac Admins Podcast has launched a Patreon Campaign! Our named patrons this month include Weldon Dodd, Damien Barrett, Justin Holt, Chad Swarthout, William Smith, Stephen Weinstein, Seb Nash, Dan McLaughlin, Joe Sfarra, Nate Cinal, Jon Brown, Dan Barker, Tim Perfitt, Ashley MacKinlay, Tobias Linder Philippe Daoust, AJ Potrebka, Adam Burg, & Hamlin Krewson
HomeKit and the Home app. There are many like it, but this is the kit (no pun intended) that Apple has vetted for automating the home. This ecosystem of products is the culmination of decades of R&D by the home automation industry, made simple - or simple(ish) by Apple. Yet it doesn’t always work as it says on the tin. In this episode we’ll have a panel with Bob Gendler, Steve Yuroff, and Tim Pearson to talk through what we like, what we don’t, and everything in between!
Hosts:
- Tom Bridge - @tbridge@theinternet.social
- Charles Edge - @cedge318
- Marcus Ransom - @marcusransom
Guests:
- Tim Pearson
- Bob Gendler
- Steve Yuroff
Transcript:
Click here to read the transcript (brought to you this week by Alectrona)
Links:
Sponsors:
If you're interested in sponsoring the Mac Admins Podcast, please email podcast@macadmins.org for more information.
Get the latest about the Mac Admins Podcast, follow us on Twitter! We're @MacAdmPodcast!
The Mac Admins Podcast has launched a Patreon Campaign! Our named patrons this month include Weldon Dodd, Damien Barrett, Justin Holt, Chad Swarthout, William Smith, Stephen Weinstein, Seb Nash, Dan McLaughlin, Joe Sfarra, Nate Cinal, Jon Brown, Dan Barker, Tim Perfitt, Ashley MacKinlay, Tobias Linder Philippe Daoust, AJ Potrebka, Adam Burg, & Hamlin Krewson
We love APIs. It tells us a little about products and a lot about how various vendors feel about structured automation. In today’s episode we’ll chat about the FileWave API - what can be done, what can’t - and of course, some cool uses in a new age of AI for everything! Our guest is Josh Levitsky, Global Head of Pro Services at FileWave, who gets to tinker with the FileWave APIs often.
Hosts:
- Tom Bridge - @tbridge@theinternet.social
- Charles Edge - @cedge318
- Marcus Ransom - @marcusransom
Guests:
-
Josh Levitsky - @jlevitsk
Transcript:
Click here to read the transcript (brought to you this week by Alectrona)
Links:
- Carmina Burana - 'In Taberna Quando Sumus' - Carl Orff
- Bulk Update the Enrollment User (auth_username) using API
- JumpCloud Restart an MDM Device with Kext Paths: JumpCloud API - 2.0
- AlmaLinux OS
- Use the winget tool to install and manage applications | Microsoft Learn
- Charles’ Similarity script to find GPT-3 and GPT-J sources
- Forums - FileWave Alliance - Web Forum
- FileWave Discord Server - Discord Server
- Josh Levitsky: josh.levitsky@filewave.com / https://www.linkedin.com/in/jlevitsk
- FileWave Product Management - Knowledge Base - FileWave Knowledge Base (atlassian.net)
- Script to Bulk Update auth/enrollment username and client name from CSV - Knowledge Base - FileWave Knowledge Base (atlassian.net)
Sponsors:
If you're interested in sponsoring the Mac Admins Podcast, please email podcast@macadmins.org for more information.
Get the latest about the Mac Admins Podcast, follow us on Twitter! We're @MacAdmPodcast!
The Mac Admins Podcast has launched a Patreon Campaign! Our named patrons this month include Weldon Dodd, Damien Barrett, Justin Holt, Chad Swarthout, William Smith, Stephen Weinstein, Seb Nash, Dan McLaughlin, Joe Sfarra, Nate Cinal, Jon Brown, Dan Barker, Tim Perfitt, Ashley MacKinlay, Tobias Linder Philippe Daoust, AJ Potrebka, Adam Burg, & Hamlin Krewson
There’s always news. So we’ll talk about that for a hot minute. We’ll also talk about how to get the most from products that, well, don’t do everything you want them to do. Or at least the ones that don’t do what you want… yet… In other words, let’s chat about how you convince product managers to build what you need.
Hosts:
- Tom Bridge - @tbridge@theinternet.social
- Charles Edge - @cedge318
- Marcus Ransom - @marcusransom
Transcript:
Click here to read the transcript (brought to you this week by Alectrona)
Links:
- X World Sessions – 2023 – AUC
- Objective by the Sea
- Automaton 2 Update (Feb 8, 2023) – Twocanoes Software
- MacSysAdmin
- MacAD.UK
- MacAdmins Conference
- Automaton 2 – Twocanoes Store
- What is yak shaving?
- Marty Coffey - Celebrity Speakers
Sponsors:
If you're interested in sponsoring the Mac Admins Podcast, please email podcast@macadmins.org for more information.
Get the latest about the Mac Admins Podcast, follow us on Twitter! We're @MacAdmPodcast!
The Mac Admins Podcast has launched a Patreon Campaign! Our named patrons this month include Weldon Dodd, Damien Barrett, Justin Holt, Chad Swarthout, William Smith, Stephen Weinstein, Seb Nash, Dan McLaughlin, Joe Sfarra, Nate Cinal, Jon Brown, Dan Barker, Tim Perfitt, Ashley MacKinlay, Tobias Linder Philippe Daoust, AJ Potrebka, Adam Burg, & Hamlin Krewson
Apple’s version of passkeys are the latest piece of a sprawling identity picture for the Apple platform that isn’t widely supported just yet - which is a perfect time to start learning about it. Passkeys aren’t just Apple; they’re supported on Mac, Windows, Android, and even in our browsers. This evolution in WebAuthn's capabilities means we don’t need physical tokens (although that’s still an option) to have a second factor in auth flows - nor is that other factor tied to a phone number, making it more secure. But for admins, there are plenty of questions we need to figure out. What do we have instead of a username and what is there in lieu of a password? As we develop solutions that work with webauthn, we often use a reference implementation at webauthn.io to test functionality. Our guest today is one of the people behind that site, Matt Miller.
Hosts:
- Tom Bridge - @tbridge@theinternet.social
- Charles Edge - @cedge318
- Marcus Ransom - @marcusransom
Guests:
-
Matthew Miller - @iamkale@infosec.exchange
Transcript:
Click here to read the transcript (brought to you this week by Alectrona)
Links:
- WebAuthn Debugger
- Project to paste in JSON versions of responses for WebAuthn calls and see their internals: SimpleWebAuthn
- Chrome extension project to view navigator.credentials endpoints and (if the most recent code checks clean and gets committed in time) paste in JSON versions of responses for WebAuthn calls and see their internals: WebAuthn Inspector
- Standards body definitions for WebAuthn: Web Authentication: An API for accessing Public Key Credentials - Level 2
- Matt Miller’s Blog - Matt's Headroom
- SimpleWebAuthn
Sponsors:
If you're interested in sponsoring the Mac Admins Podcast, please email podcast@macadmins.org for more information.
Get the latest about the Mac Admins Podcast, follow us on Twitter! We're @MacAdmPodcast!
The Mac Admins Podcast has launched a Patreon Campaign! Our named patrons this month include Weldon Dodd, Damien Barrett, Justin Holt, Chad Swarthout, William Smith, Stephen Weinstein, Seb Nash, Dan McLaughlin, Joe Sfarra, Nate Cinal, Jon Brown, Dan Barker, Tim Perfitt, Ashley MacKinlay, Tobias Linder Philippe Daoust, AJ Potrebka, Adam Burg, & Hamlin Krewson
We have these computers. And they are truly bastion hosts. Nothing comes in, and only that with which we want goes out. They’re perfect when we finish setting them up. Then people make changes and put apps on there. The changes we can mitigate, the apps require a little more analysis. A common strategy to manage that risk is to employ a reputation-based access such as dictated by zero trust - another is to test apps for vulnerabilities, which in a way feeds back into the zero trust decision mechanism in the end. But what kind of tests can be effective, especially since those compiled runtimes don’t tell us a lot about what’s going on. We’ll chat about this paradigm with today’s guest Niels Hofmans, and look for ways to fill up that task list for 2023!
Hosts:
- Tom Bridge - @tbridge777
- Charles Edge - @cedge318
- Marcus Ransom - @marcusransom
Guests:
-
Niels Hofmans - @hazcod
Transcript:
Transcription of this episode brought to you by Alectrona
Click here to read the transcript
Links:
- Intigriti
- Niels’ GitHub
- OWASP Foundation
- OWASP Mobile Application Security
- CodeQL
- NVD
- Belgian Beer Waffles
Sponsors:
If you're interested in sponsoring the Mac Admins Podcast, please email podcast@macadmins.org for more information.
Get the latest about the Mac Admins Podcast, follow us on Twitter! We're @MacAdmPodcast!
The Mac Admins Podcast has launched a Patreon Campaign! Our named patrons this month include Weldon Dodd, Damien Barrett, Justin Holt, Chad Swarthout, William Smith, Stephen Weinstein, Seb Nash, Dan McLaughlin, Joe Sfarra, Nate Cinal, Jon Brown, Dan Barker, Tim Perfitt, Ashley MacKinlay, Tobias Linder Philippe Daoust, AJ Potrebka, Adam Burg, & Hamlin Krewson
Spring is coming, and with it, MacADUK’s return to Brighton, England for this year’s first European Mac Admin Conference. We’re talking with two of the organizing committee, Alex Hawes and James Ridsdale about this year’s conference, what attendees can expect, and what’s important to them in a Mac Admins Conference.
Hosts:
- Tom Bridge - @tbridge777
- CHarles Edge - @cedge318
- Marcus Ransom - @marcusransom
Guests:
- Alex Hawes - @alexdthawes
- James Ridsdale - @james_ridsdale
Transcript:
Click here to read the transcript
Links:
Sponsors:
If you're interested in sponsoring the Mac Admins Podcast, please email podcast@macadmins.org for more information.
Get the latest about the Mac Admins Podcast, follow us on Twitter! We're @MacAdmPodcast!
The Mac Admins Podcast has launched a Patreon Campaign! Our named patrons this month include Weldon Dodd, Damien Barrett, Justin Holt, Chad Swarthout, William Smith, Stephen Weinstein, Seb Nash, Dan McLaughlin, Joe Sfarra, Nate Cinal, Jon Brown, Dan Barker, Tim Perfitt, Ashley MacKinlay, Tobias Linder Philippe Daoust, AJ Potrebka, Adam Burg, & Hamlin Krewson
According to a recent PDQ survey, 85% of people who manage devices are a team of 1. Many of our guests have a small scope to their job: they manage Macs and/or iPhones. But many in IT manage, well, everything. That means being a jack of many traits: knowing just enough about networking, switches, routers, every piece of software used in an organization, budgeting, or whatever is on the docket at the moment. Today we’re going to cover what it’s like to cover such breadth with Ylan.
Hosts:
- Tom Bridge - @tbridge777
- Charles Edge - @cedge318
- Marcus Ransom - @marcusransom
Guests:
-
Ylan Muller - @HeyItsYlan
Transcript:
Click here to read the transcript
Sponsors:
If you're interested in sponsoring the Mac Admins Podcast, please email podcast@macadmins.org for more information.
Get the latest about the Mac Admins Podcast, follow us on Twitter! We're @MacAdmPodcast!
The Mac Admins Podcast has launched a Patreon Campaign! Our named patrons this month include Weldon Dodd, Damien Barrett, Justin Holt, Chad Swarthout, William Smith, Stephen Weinstein, Seb Nash, Dan McLaughlin, Joe Sfarra, Nate Cinal, Jon Brown, Dan Barker, Tim Perfitt, Ashley MacKinlay, Tobias Linder Philippe Daoust, AJ Potrebka, Adam Burg, & Hamlin Krewson
It’s just us again, and that means we’re talking about everything going on right now. Layoffs, new hardware, Ventura and Deferrals, and then Passkeys, Hardware Tokens and Apple IDs, and more.
Hosts:
- Tom Bridge, Principal Product Manager, JumpCloud – @tbridge777
- Charles Edge, CTO, Bootstrappers.mn – @cedge318
- Marcus Ransom, Senior Sales Engineer, Jamf – @marcusransom
Links:
- What explains recent tech layoffs, and why should we be worried? | Stanford News
- MacBook Pro 14- and 16-inch – Tech Specs – Apple
- Mac mini – Technical Specifications – Apple
- HomePod – Apple
- Kensington Locking Kit for Mac Studio – Apple
Sponsors:
Patreon Sponsors:
The Mac Admins Podcast has launched a Patreon Campaign! Our named patrons this month include:
Rick Goody, Mike Boylan, Melvin Vives, William (Bill) Stites, Anoush d’Orville, Jeffrey Compton, M.Marsh, Hamlin Krewson, Adam Burg, A.J. Potrebka, James Stracey, Timothy Perfitt, Nate Cinal, William O’Neal, Sebastian Nash, Command Control Power, Stephen Weinstein, Chad Swarthout, Daniel MacLaughlin, Justin Holt, William Smith, and Weldon Dodd
Mac Admins Podcast Community Calendar, Sponsored by Watchman Monitoring
We’ve wanted to have an episode with MacPaw since far before Ukraine was invaded on February 24th, 2022. Then we pushed it back over and over out of respect for everything going on. But we’re super-excited to finally have someone on the podcast to talk about what it was like to go through an invasion, the technical infrastructure, tooling, emotional toll, and how they still managed to get work done 11 months into a war. We welcome Vira Tkachenko to the pod to take us through her journey.
Hosts:
- Tom Bridge - @tbridge777
- Charles Edge - @cedge318
Guests:
-
Vira Tkachenko - @iVira
Transcript:
Click here to read the transcript
Links:
- MacPaw Foundation
- About MacPaw
- MacPaw’s Operations amidst the Russian Aggression against Ukraine
- Ukraine's MacPaw releases SpyBuster, designed to beat Russian hacks | AppleInsider
- MacPaw Inc. · GitHub
- How Ukraine’s MacPaw got its business ready for war | Computerworld
Sponsors:
If you're interested in sponsoring the Mac Admins Podcast, please email podcast@macadmins.org for more information.
Get the latest about the Mac Admins Podcast, follow us on Twitter! We're @MacAdmPodcast!
The Mac Admins Podcast has launched a Patreon Campaign! Our named patrons this month include Weldon Dodd, Damien Barrett, Justin Holt, Chad Swarthout, William Smith, Stephen Weinstein, Seb Nash, Dan McLaughlin, Joe Sfarra, Nate Cinal, Jon Brown, Dan Barker, Tim Perfitt, Ashley MacKinlay, Tobias Linder Philippe Daoust, AJ Potrebka, Adam Burg, & Hamlin Krewson
One of the most useful things we do is to automate tasks. Some of those tasks might be opening and closing tickets; others would be making a change on an endpoint that we want to behave in a specific way. We buy devices, or procure them, and we dispose of them when they’re out of date or broken. Between those tasks, we on-board and off-board the humans who use the devices. We make sure the devices meet our requirements. Much of what is expected of us wouldn’t be possible without teams of people running around looking at settings without software that helps us along the way. The tasks themselves, while we feel are pretty unique on Apple devices, are often similar across platforms. We’ll chat with Flora Walters in today’s episode about her journey, scope, and some of the tools that make her job possible in today’s episode.
Hosts:
- Marcus Ransom - @marcusransom
- Charles Edge - @cedge318
Guests:
-
Flora Walters - LinkedIn
Transcript:
Click here to read the transcript
Sponsors:
If you're interested in sponsoring the Mac Admins Podcast, please email podcast@macadmins.org for more information.
Get the latest about the Mac Admins Podcast, follow us on Twitter! We're @MacAdmPodcast!
The Mac Admins Podcast has launched a Patreon Campaign! Our named patrons this month include Weldon Dodd, Damien Barrett, Justin Holt, Chad Swarthout, William Smith, Stephen Weinstein, Seb Nash, Dan McLaughlin, Joe Sfarra, Nate Cinal, Jon Brown, Dan Barker, Tim Perfitt, Ashley MacKinlay, Tobias Linder Philippe Daoust, AJ Potrebka, Adam Burg, & Hamlin Krewson
We wish we could just talk nerd. But the world is a complicated place - and there are questions we would be remiss if we didn’t ask! This week, we are honored to have Yuri Vlasyuk join us as our special guest. Yuri is the CEO of iLand and an organizer of MacAdminsUA. We will of course talk nerd, but also much more!
Hosts:
- Tom Bridge - @tbridge777
- Charles Edge - @cedge318
- Marcus Ransom - @marcusransom
Guests:
-
Yuri Vlasyuk - @iyura
Transcript:
Click here to read the transcript
Sponsors:
If you're interested in sponsoring the Mac Admins Podcast, please email podcast@macadmins.org for more information.
Get the latest about the Mac Admins Podcast, follow us on Twitter! We're @MacAdmPodcast!
The Mac Admins Podcast has launched a Patreon Campaign! Our named patrons this month include Weldon Dodd, Damien Barrett, Justin Holt, Chad Swarthout, William Smith, Stephen Weinstein, Seb Nash, Dan McLaughlin, Joe Sfarra, Nate Cinal, Jon Brown, Dan Barker, Tim Perfitt, Ashley MacKinlay, Tobias Linder Philippe Daoust, AJ Potrebka, Adam Burg, & Hamlin Krewson