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Managing Mac computers

Patch Manager Plus Cloud can be used to manage computers with Mac operating Systems. Patch Manager Plus Cloud has separate agents to manage Mac computers. This document will explain you on the following:

Supported Mac OS

Patch Manager Plus Cloud currently supports the following Mac versions:

    1. 10.6 Snow Leopard
    2. 10.7 Lion
    3. 10.8 Mountain Lion
    4. 10.9 Mavericks
    5. 10.10 Yosemite
    6. 10.11 EI Capitan
    7. 10.12 Sierra
    8. 10.13 High Sierra
    9. 10.14 Mojave
    10. 10.15 Catalina

Note: Patch Manager Plus Cloud currently supports managing Mac OS with Intel Processor

Configuring Mac Agent Settings

Patch Manager Plus Cloud has different agents for windows and Mac computers. Mac agents will not be created by default.  You can create Mac agents by configuring the settings in the scope of management.  This will help you automatically create Mac agents for remote offices. To Configure the Mac agent settings follow the steps mentioned below.

  1. Click the Admin tab to invoke the Admin page.
  2. Click the Agent Settings link available under SoM Settings.
  3. Select Mac Agent Settings tab
  4. Select the domain or the workgroup to group Mac computers (this is virtual grouping and will not impact on its functions).  Agents that are added from SoM --> Add Computers will be shown under the respective Domain/Workgroup from which they are added.
  5. Click Save Changes to create Mac agents.

    Mac agents can be download from the SoM page.

Installing Mac Agents

Mac agents can be installed manually in the computers that need to be managed.  Agents can be installed manually in every computer or through SSH. To install the agent, log-in into the computer as an administrator and follow the steps mentioned below.

  1. Click on Scope of Management.
  2. Click on Download Agent link

You will have a drop down list, from which you can choose and download the appropriate agent or distribution server. It will further have options to select the agent pertaining to different platforms (Windows or Mac). Follow the steps mentioned below to install the agents manually,

  1. Login into the Mac computer as administrator and navigate to the location where the agent is downloaded.
  2. Extract the zip file and  locate PatchManagerPlus_MacAgent.pkg and serverinfo.plist file.
  3. Double click to install the agent.
  4. Enter administrators password when prompted to complete installation.

Installing Mac Agents Remotely

Installing Mac agents to remote office computers can be done easily through SSH. Using a Mac computer you can remotely connect to other computers and install the Mac agents. To know about installing agents follow the steps mentioned below.

    1. Login into the Mac computer as administrator
    2. Download the Mac agent.
    3. Copy the downloaded Mac agent
    4. Open the terminal
    5. Navigate to the location where the agent is downloaded.
    6. Type scp PMPMacAgent.zip adminusername@hostname: to copy the agent to the target computer.
      1. where adminusername - administrator user name of the remote computer
      2. hostname - local host name of the remote computer
      3. Agent is copied in the location ~/Users/adminusername in target computer

    7. Install the agent in the remote computer

    8. To login into the target computer using SSH type ssh adminusername@hostname

    9. Navigate to the location where the agent is copied, Unzip the agent zip file by typing unzip -oq PMPMacAgent.zip

    10. Install the agent using the command sudo installer  -pkg  PatchManagerPlus_MacAgent.pkg  -target  /

    11. Enter the administrator password when prompted to complete agent installation.

    12. Once the agents are installed successfully, the Mac computers will be listed in the SoM page in the Patch Manager Plus Cloud web console.

Uninstall Mac agents

To uninstall the agents from the computers, follow the steps mentioned below.

  1. Login into the computer as administrator and open the terminal.
  2. Navigate to the directory /Library/PatchManagerPlus_Agent/uninstall
  3. Type sudo chmod 744 uninstall.sh, and enter administrator password when prompted.
  4.  Type the command sudo ./uninstall.sh, this command removes all the files except logs.