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The IT head of the (mostly Windows) company where I service 3 Macs (2 Lion, one Leopard) is insisting on the ability for him to push Apple security update patches when they are released (he doesn't trust the three users to respond when prompted by Software Update) before he will "let the Macs on 'his' network... so:
1. Remote admin application for administering Mac OS updates on a network in a single operation (as opposed to logging in to each machine individually via vnc or such)?
And given that, here's the kicker:
2... from aPC??
I imagine #1 is possible and that #2 is just the guy being a putz.
Thanks for suggestions...
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onthedownlow wrote:
1. Apple Remote Desktop
http://www.apple.com/remotedesktop/
2. Yes, it is possible a couple of ways: First, with some creativity (use a headless Mac with the above installed and Remote/VNC into it, when needed)
...or you can utilize a Hackintosh or a virtual machine of OS X on PC hardware utilizing VirtualBox (or Parallels, if you want to spend the money and figure it out...):
Easier now, but here's a quick how-to from the past: http://www.sysprobs.com/mac-os-guest-vir...s-7-32-bit
Yeah, I figured on ARD for #1, but when I said "from a PC" on #2, I meant from his existing windows admin computer, not from a purpose-built non-Mac emulating a Mac. Believe me, of all theMac-phobic IT admins I've ever run across, this guy is the biggest d****bag of them all.
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He can run a virtual machine on his existing computer (most likely), so no need to 'build' one (or he could remote into an existing, perhaps older Mac and run ARD from there - a Mac that is re-purposed just for this task - have it sit in the server room or wherever out of the way).
...unless, he is not up to that challenge or have the (simple) know-how to do this on his current machine.
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He could easily do it if he was comfortable logging into the three Macs separately. There's only three Macs after all. What is that, 15 minutes worth of work?
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Tell him to enable Remote Login on each Mac. Then he can SSH into each one and run this command from the Terminal:
sudo softwareupdate -i -a
That should satisfy him because it's:
1. Secure; and
2. He can blow some company time figuring out how to automate/script it.
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Tell him that when Microsoft releases a tool to allow him to update Windows PCs natively from a Mac you'll show him how to do the same from a PC for a Mac. MS has WSUS for updating PCs, which is great but it still requires a Windows Server to run it. He isn't necessarily a douchebag. He's just incapable of visualizing a world that doesn't revolve around MS. Some people never new a world before Windows. To them, OS X is an 'invader' rather than a rescuer.
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If you really want to go pretty simple you could probably just set up something like the following:
1) Set up a website on each Mac; enable Web Sharing.
2) Have a button on said site trigger the software update command indicated above. (I'm not sure HOW to do that part exactly although I think it can be done as with a little ingenuity and CGI + Perl - now I'm indicating how dated my web work is!)
Chakravartin's advice is pretty good, actually; the hardest part for you in that case will be getting the guy an SSH client - believe it or not, it's NOT built into Windows! Putty is a commonly used one.
g=
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onthedownlow wrote: ...unless, he is not up to that challenge or have the (simple) know-how to do this on his current machine.
What he doesn't have is the desire to do anything on a Mac... but these are good suggestions and I'll give him a chance to turn them down.
