10-04-2011, 07:00 PM
Joey Cupcakes wrote:
Is there a way to adapt this command to approve only Security patches?
Yes. Sort of.
You can use the -l flag ( that's a lowercase "L" ) to list all available software updates and then once you have the name of the update that you want to install you use the command like this:
sudo softwareupdate --install SecUpd2011-004-1.0
(That command would install only the 2011-004 security update for Leopard.)
It wouldn't be hard for a good IT admin to write a script that listed the available updates and then selectively installed the ones containing "SecUpd" while ignoring the others.
Joey Cupcakes wrote:
Also, adapt the command line to include an admin password for that specific computer?
You have to have an admin password to install software updates this way. The "install" flag that is used to install software updates requires escalated privileges. That's what the "sudo" is there for in my examples.
You can also set up Remote Login to allow only a certain admin account to connect to the Mac via SSH.