Automating the enablement of object versioning on AWS S3 buckets

As part of some work I’ve been doing with Amazon Web Services, I needed to enable object versioning on all S3 buckets in an account.

However, I had three issues that I needed to accommodate for:

1. There were a sufficient number of S3 buckets that enabling versioning via the S3 web console would be inconvenient.
2. Some of the S3 buckets in the list already had object versioning enabled, while others in the list did not.
3. I had forgotten which ones already had versioning enabled, so I’d have to check each one.

To address all three issues, I’ve written a script that uses the aws command line tool to detect which S3 buckets do not have object versioning enabled and enable it on the detected S3 buckets. For more details, see below the jump.

Activating EndNote X8 using management profiles

I’ve moved on from a role where I needed to support Clarivate Analytics’s EndNote bibliography software, but I noticed that my colleague Rusty Myers is now deploying it in his environment.

As part of his work, Rusty discovered that it was possible to bypass the activation process by adding the AcceptedENX7.2EULA key to /Library/Preferences/com.ThomsonResearchSoft.EndNote.plist:

	<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
	<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd"&gt;
	<plist version="1.0">
	<dict>
	<key>AcceptedENX7.2EULA</key>
	<string>1</string>
	</dict>
	</plist>

view raw

com.ThomsonResearchSoft.EndNote.plist

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In Rusty’s case, the key is being added by running the following commands with root privileges:

/usr/bin/defaults write "/Library/Preferences/com.ThomsonResearchSoft.EndNote.plist" "AcceptedENX7.2EULA" -string "1"

Reading through Rusty’s post, I wondered if you could apply this setting via a management profile instead of writing the necessary values to /Library/Preferences/com.ThomsonResearchSoft.EndNote.plist. With some testing, I verified that it’s possible to also bypass the activation process with a management profile.

For those who want to bypass EndNoteX8’s activation process using a management profile, I’ve created a .mobileconfig file and posted it here on Github:

https://github.com/rtrouton/profiles/tree/master/ActivateEndNote/EndNoteX8

I’ve also created one for EndNoteX7, since it appears that the setting has not changed since EndNoteX7’s release. However, I do not have access to that version of EndNote and can’t test it to make sure.

If you’re still deploying EndNote X7, please give it a try and let me know. The .mobileconfig file for EndNoteX7 has been posted here on Github:

https://github.com/rtrouton/profiles/tree/master/ActivateEndNote/EndNoteX7

VMware Fusion 8.5.8 adds Apple File System (APFS) support

VMware recently released VMware Fusion 8.5.8, which according to the release notes includes the following:

Another improvement which is not mentioned in the release notes is that VMware Fusion now includes support for the following:

• Using the macOS High Sierra beta installer as a valid installation source
• Booting macOS VMs from Apple File System (APFS) formatted drives.

For more details, see below the jump.

Session videos now available from MacDevOpsYVR 2017

The good folks who host the MacDevOpsYVR conference have begun posting the session videos from MacDevOpsYVR 2017. As the session videos are being posted to YouTube, I’ve linked my Storing our digital lives: from MFS to APFS session here:

The other videos from the conference are being posted here:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIZgKKNrG-ty72Bez8b2qHg/videos

AutoPkg recipes for Apple Enterprise Connect

To help keep on top of software updates, I’ve been using AutoPkg in combination with AutoPkgr and JSSImporter for a while now to upload new software updates to Jamf Pro. However, I recently ran into a challenge when I wanted to build an AutoPkg recipe for Apple’s Enterprise Connect.

AutoPkg recipes usually rely on the vendor having a publicly accessible way to get downloads via HTTP or HTTPS. Apple does not have a publicly accessible download URL for Enterprise Connect and in fact discourages customers from sharing the download link. The fact that there was a download link meant that I could write AutoPkg recipes but at the same time I couldn’t include the URL needed to download the latest update as part of the recipe .

After some thinking and research into AutoPkg’s functionality, I found a way to create AutoPkg recipes for Enterprise Connect while at the same time not sharing Apple’s download URL. For more details, see below the jump.

WWDC 2017 notes

While I’m not at Apple’s WWDC conference this year, several other folks in the community stepped up to help crowdsource questions and answers for the Mac admin community. Due to wanting to stay on the right side of Apple’s NDA, the resulting notes have been posted to Apple’s developer forums rather than to here.

To make it easier for Mac admins to access them, I’ve set up a post in the forums where I’ve linking the various forum posts. It’s available via the link below:

https://forums.developer.apple.com/message/234797

Slides from the “Storing our digital lives: Mac filesystems from MFS to APFS” session at MacDeployment 2017

For those who wanted a copy of my filesystem talk at the MacDeployment 2017 conference, here are links to the slides in PDF and Keynote format.

PDF – http://tinyurl.com/MacDeployment2017pdf

Keynote – http://tinyurl.com/MacDeployment2017key

Slides from the “Payload-free Packages: Bundle vs Flat” QuickTalk at MacDevOpsYVR 2017

For those who wanted a copy of my payload-free package QuickTalk at the MacDevOpsYVR 2017 conference, here are links to the slides in PDF and Keynote format.

PDF – https://tinyurl.com/MacDevOpsPkgPDF

Keynote – https://tinyurl.com/MacDevOpsPkgKey

Slides from the “Storing our digital lives: Mac filesystems from MFS to APFS” session at MacDevOpsYVR 2017

For those who wanted a copy of my filesystem talk at the MacDevOpsYVR 2017 conference, here are links to the slides in PDF and Keynote format.

PDF – http://tinyurl.com/MacDevOpsYVR2017pdf

Keynote – http://tinyurl.com/MacDevOpsYVR2017key