MacOS
Logic Pro Rename
Posted on 1 min
With the 11.1 update, Logic Pro has changed the app bundle from Logic Pro X.app to Logic Pro.app But wait! Didn’t this change happen a few updates back? Yes and no… The file sustem name was Logic Pro X.app but it displayed in Finder as Logic Pro.app If installing Logic Pro from the App Store, none of this is important as it is all seemless to the user. If like me you are managing this on managed endpoints, the path changing is important.Getting Version Info for MATLAB
Posted on 2 mins
It can be challenging to get accurate version information for MATLAB on macOS. The installer is not a package, so no package receipts to rely on. The next place we might logically look for version info is in the app bundle itself. <key>CFBundleVersion</key> <string>24.2.0</string> Well that at least looks promising… This is an example from an installation of MATLAB 2024b. The 24.x indicates 2024 and the x.2 indicates b version. The problem with this is that the full version of that app is 24.Mathematica.app Is Now Wolfram.app
Posted on 1 min
With version 14.1 of the desktop app, Mathematica.app is now Wolfram.app. In addition to a new path and a new bundle identifier for the application, there is also a new path if you deploy a mathpass file as we do in our organization. /Library/Mathematica/Licensing/mathpass as of version 14.1 becomes /Library/Wolfram/Licensing/mathpassDeploying SPSS 27
Posted on 1 min
Good news! As of SPSS 27 IBM is finally shipping an Apple installer package for macOS instead of their Java based silent installer. Looking at the installer, it has a few minor issues but is for the most part sane. The package can be imported into Munki without much fuss. As in the past, activation will need to be scripted post install to license SPSS. The format of the path to the application has changed a bit, my postinstall script now looks like :Enabling and Disabling SSH Using Munki
Posted on 2 mins
I recently needed to be able to test connectivity from client systems in a number of locations to some new infrastructure. Obviously being able to remotely login to these systems is a lot more efficient than traveling around to all the locations. We do not have SSH enabled by default on our managed macOS clients. I wanted to use Munki to enable SSH on select systems for testing, and then be able to disable it after testing was completed.Renewing SPSS for Mac License Silently Update
Posted on 1 min
I previously wrote about a script to license SPSS for Mac silently . In version 25 of SPSS Statistics, the path to the bundled Java has changed. It now no longer has the version of the JRE in the path. As a result the script now looks like this : #!/bin/bash -x VERSION=25 AUTHCODE=<redacted> APPPATH="/Applications/IBM/SPSS/Statistics/$VERSION/SPSSStatistics.app/" cd "$APPPATH/Contents/bin" "$APPPATH/Contents/JRE/bin/java" -jar "$APPPATH/Contents/bin/licenseactivator.jar" SILENTMODE CODES=$AUTHCODE If SPSS keeps a consistent path to the bundled Java, it will make it a little bit easier to update the script for each new version of SPSS Statistics.Deploying SPSS Statistics 24
Posted on 2 mins
I previously posted a method for scripting the activation of SPSS Statistics 23. My method has changed for version 24, so I thought it would be a good idea to write up my notes. First up, repackaging. Due to the SPSS silent installer being notoriously bad, I had already decided I would just repackage version 24 and use a postinstall script to activate. It really is the best way to ensure that it will deploy properly.Renewing SPSS for Mac License Silently
Posted on 3 mins
It’s not hard to find discussions online about installing SPSS silently. I have a working install based on this discussion . I needed to re-license a number of machines with a new authorization code and had a bit of trouble, so I thought I’d write it up… I built a payload free package with The Luggage to distribute with Munki, and my first attempt at the postinstall script looked like this :Building a Signed Package With the Luggage
Posted on 1 min
Recently I wanted to be able to sign a package that I was building with The Luggage. Since The Luggage is calling pkgbuild to build the package, I took a look at the pkgbuild documentation and determined that the following argument was needed : --sign "Common name of signing cert" The question then became : how to add this to my Makefile? Taking a look at luggage.make I saw that PB_EXTRA_ARGS is the variable used to contain the arguments for the pkgbuild command.Enabling Syntax Highlighting for Vim in Mac OS X
Posted on 2 mins
Mac OS X ships with the vim editor, which supports syntax highlighting. By default, however, syntax highlighting is not turned on. Fortunately it is not hard to enable it. Settings for vim are controlled by two files, one controlling settings globally and the other controlling settings for the user. /usr/share/vim/vimrc is the file that will control the global settings. changes made to this file will affect all users of the machine.