Some weeks ago a Jamf Patch Uploader user contacted Graham and me about a patching workflow, which he wasn’t able to deploy with the current processor design. AutoPkg is all about flexibility and not much was needed to make this workflow possible, so I am glad to present you a new feature in the Jamf Patch Uploader! If you never used the Jamf Patch Uploader, read my other post first. I explained the usage and idea behind it in detail -> JamfPatchUplaoder: Automate Jamf’s Patch Management with AutoPkg

After switching from munki to Jamf Pro some years ago, I really disliked the process to update and maintain software installations on the clients. The method of creating multiple Smart Groups and Install Policies felt pretty cumbersome (with clever AutoPkg workflows it’s at least tolerable, but still fills up your Jamf instance pretty fast). Jamf Pro Patch Management When Jamf introduced a built-in Patch Management I quickly started to take a look and play around with it.

When you start using AutoPKG’s custom processor you may encounter python errors about missing libraries or modules. The worst offender is probably the requests module which get’s used often in custom processors: % autopkg run com.gitlab.autopkg.some.recipe Processing com.gitlab.autopkg.some.recipe... WARNING: /Users/marcel/Library/AutoPkg/RecipeRepos/com.gitlab.autopkg.some.recipe/PostProcessors/SomeCustomProcessor.py: No module named 'requests' If you would install the module simply via the ususal way e.g. pip3 install requests the problem would persist. The reason why is, that AutoPKG uses it’s own python binary and a custom location for libraries and modules.

I always prefered to create dock items or entries to enhance the user experience on my managed macOS clients. Not so savy macOS user can find their newly installed applications easily in the dock (in my experience especially Windows users think that the dock is their only way to start software) and experienced user simply get a good indication, that the software was successfully installed (the feedback of Jamf’s Self Service is a bit lacking in my opinion).