Neal Spangler

Work Endpoints

Office Macs moved onto one MDM in place

I moved the office Macs from two management systems to Mosyle. Profiles and scripts apply the printer, share and Dock settings that had been set by hand, then read the settings back to check them.

Mac workstations
Mac workstations Photo: Mahmudul Hasan / Unsplash, Unsplash License
12Macs managed, only the pilot erased
Read-backchecks of applied printer settings
16defined commands after merging overlapping scripts
8 of 8files recovered from an apparently empty zip

The problem

Printers pointed at the wrong device and Docks showed apps that were not installed. Apple's built-in service could not run scripts, so fixes were manual. I needed to move the Macs without erasing people's working setups.

What I did

  • Reset one pilot to prove enrollment could apply the baseline, then moved the remaining Macs in place to preserve their working setups.
  • Wrote 31 command scripts and 13 configuration profiles covering printers, the Dock, the screensaver, Chrome and privacy permissions, applied by department.
  • Keyed every printer rule to the Mac's hardware serial number after address-based rules drifted. One script sets each department's default printer from that Mac's own queue list.
  • Built an Extract Here app for zips that unpacked to empty folders on the file share. Archive Utility's quarantine-flag write fails there and rolls back the whole extraction.
Diagram
Mac migration path Each Mac was inventoried, one pilot Mac was erased to prove the setup, the rest were migrated to the new MDM in place, a baseline of profiles and scripts was applied, and every script reads its setting back on the Mac before reporting success. A mismatch is reported as a failure. Inventory who manages what Pilot erased on purpose Migrate in place, no erase Baseline profiles + scripts Read back on each Mac mismatch reported as a failure Mac migration and settings checks
Inventory, pilot, migration, profiles and scripts, then checks on each Mac.

What I took from it

My printer script reported OK, but macOS still used Last Printer Used and sent jobs to another department. I changed the checks to read back the settings that control printing.

Privacy