Jaime Gago Condensing Information Systems From the Vapor Of Data

Apple Software Updates In A Business Environment

There are many ways to deal with Apple Software Updates, here’s the one I’m currently using with the Mac pool (300+) I am in charge of.

1)Automate the download from the mother ships aka Apple servers back to my home planet aka my LAN and make the updates available.

For this I use the Software Update Service that ships with Os X Server . Although I automatically download the updates I only enable them after I have tested them.

In my config I have found that one local SUS is plenty, if you need more than one  you can easily redirect the other(s) SUS to your principal, check Page 87 of this Apple doc

2)Point the Macs that *always* stay in the Home LAN to the Home Beacon aka my local SUS.
I manage my pool via Open Directory so all I have to do is use Workgroup Manager and set the Software Update Preferences to my local SUS using its URL (http://my_osx_server_hosting_SUS:8088/index.sucatalog ) and voila... If you need to point unmanaged clients check Page 88 of this Apple doc

3)After I’ve enabled a new update, I have to say “go and collect your minerals updates” to my SVCs clients.

I use Apple Remote Desktop to “Send a Unix command” as root (i.e. softwareupdate -i -a).

Also with 300+ Macs I often end up with one in my office that’s pointing to Apple SUS that I want to update, for example after re-imaging.
And so I have I written a short shell script that does this:
-Makes the Mac to point at my local SUS for updates
-Launch the updating process
-Reset to the default Apple SUS
-Reboot

Here it is

#!/bin/bash
#
#Apple software update via local SUS, machine will reboot.
#Requires Admin level access. Better not to interrupt...
#
sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate CatalogURL "http://lo.cal.sus:8088/"
echo "Now pointing to Local SUS"
softwareupdate -i -a
echo "Apple software updated"
defaults delete /Library/Preferences/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate CatalogURL
echo "Now pointing to Apple SUS Mother Ships."
#Reboot needed?
if [ -e /var/db/.AppleSoftwareUpdateAtLogout ]; then
    echo "reboot needed:rebooting"
    osascript -e 'tell application "Finder" to restart'
fi
exit 0

At last since the laptop ratio of my pool is seriously increasing and since I don’t want to manage the Software Update Preference for those, I am looking into playing with DNS  as in this Mac Os X Hints post.