- #Imaging a mac with munki install
- #Imaging a mac with munki software
- #Imaging a mac with munki download
You should assess the support for legacy versions of macOS with this release and determine if you should install Munki 4 or continue to use the 3.x variant based on the age of your Mac fleet. Munki recently released version 4.x on their GitHub page, which includes its own Python support instead of relying on Apple’s embedded version.
You can find the client installers at, and I’m going to be downloading the Munki 3.6.4 release which supports macOS 10.10 Yosemite to macOS 10.15 Catalina. The first one is the official MunkiTools release from the Munki Project’s GitHub page.
#Imaging a mac with munki download
The first thing we need to do is download a couple of installer packages.
I typically use the same workstation where I have Apple Remote Desktop installed so I have all of my Mac management tools in one place. Now that we have our server up and running, our next step is to configure the workstation that our Munki system administrator will use to create packages, upload data to the server, and manage the Munki environment. Because there is no centralized database or proprietary files to worry about, simply syncing the flat files and folders between servers will allow you to scale your Munki environment with ease.
If you are looking to support multiple sites with Munki, you can repeat these same steps for each location’s server and then use a utility to sync the munki_repo directories between servers. If you are building out a production Munki server, you may want to consider a machine with adequate disk space as the main requirement because all of your installation packages will reside on this box. The Munki server only needs to be available on the internal network and will work best without any other services running on it. You may be tempted to use your existing Profile Manager server however, this is not recommended because both services use the Apache web server and could conflict with each other. Your server does not need to be running macOS Server as the built-in tools in the client version of macOS will provide all of the necessary features we need. Before we begin this exercise, go ahead and stage a Mac that will be used as our web server. Let’s get started by building our Munki web server. Configuring an Apache Web Server for Munki I think you will find it to be a powerful addition to your arsenal of Mac deployment and support tools.
#Imaging a mac with munki software
I have personally used Munki to manage software deployments to over ten thousand macOS clients across 50 locations. This allows for load balancing and multilocation support without having to worry about centralized databases or other complexities found in commercial solutions. One of the best features of Munki is that it stores all of the data in XML files like ∗.plists which can easily be synced between multiple servers. I have found that due to the various underlying changes that Apple has made to macOS, using a tool like this to deploy software is the best alternative to the now-obsolete task of monolithic imaging. This allows one technician at the Munki Admin console to package and deploy applications on a set schedule to any number of Macs across a nearly unlimited number of locations.Īs we work through this chapter, we will be building a web server for use with Munki, configuring our Munki Admin workstation, packaging a few applications for deployment, and then deploying those applications to a test Mac running the Munki Managed Software Center application. Then it syncs, downloads, and installs software packages. At its most basic level, the client software checks into a specified web server every hour to see if anything has changed. Munki was written in Python and runs as an application on your Mac clients. In this chapter, we are going to be working with an open source solution called Munki from Walt Disney Animation Studios ( Munki is a simple, effective, and freely available software deployment solution for managing Macs in medium and large organizations.