Deploying software updates is a daily task for many Mac admins, and doing it properly requires a lot of tedious manual work and tribal knowledge. Isn’t this why we have computers?
Enter AutoPkg, a system developed to automate finding new third-party application updates and integrating them into our software management systems to deploy to users. Best of all, these updates are defined in a shareable, reusable “”recipe”” format that are actively maintained by a community of Mac admins.
In this session we’ll explore setting up AutoPkg and pulling in a collection of third-party applications using some available recipes. We’ll also see how to customize these for our own environment, and look at writing our own recipes we can share with others.
Key Concepts:
Software updates, software deployment, packaging, application versioning, plists
Foundational Lecture – 75 Minutes
Greg Neagle, Walt Disney Animation Studios
Greg has created several tools used by Mac systems administrators around the world. Among those are Munki, a software deployment framework, Reposado, a platform-agnostic replacement for Apple’s Software Update service, and the “createOSXinstallerPkg” tool set. He’s also a frequent speaker at Mac admin conferences.