Deploying various apps to MacOS with Meraki

[Kirchk]

Hello,

Meraki has been a wonderful tool for our iOS devices and I have no complaints on its operations with mobile devices. App deployment for MacOS, however, is another matter which is causing my establishment to look to other solutions so that we can deploy apps to both Apple products.

I've followed the Meraki article on Windows/Mac App deployment as best possible and have been successful with deploying Microsoft Office, however, I haven't been fortunate enough to get apps like Google Chrome or Java to successfully deploy.

The following apps are required for my deployment that I'm hoping to deploy to my MacOS devices:

• Microsoft Office (successfully deployed)
• Adobe Flash
• Java
• Google Chrome (A .APP in a DMG)
• Micro Focus / Novell iPrint

Has anyone successfully deployed these apps through Meraki? If so, what steps were taken to deploy these apps?

There are apps that I'd like to deploy via VPP, such as iMovie to MacOS - is there any plans to implement VPP device-based app deployment for MacOS devices?

[Ben]

Hi,

What is your configuration for these apps and what does the log file say?

Agent logs are found in the /var/log/m_agent.log files.

System logs (similar to the iOS console logs) are found in /var/log/system.log

I deployed F-Secure to windows computers using the Meraki MDM before with a web URL + Installation arguments (triggers).

You should consider the MDM as silent installing an application through command line. 

example for command line:  fsecure-setup.exe /SILENT /LANG:ENG

Meraki MDM => setup file url goes in the Installer field and the triggers go to the Installation arguments field.

Cheers,

Ben

[sshort]

Yes, pushing Mac apps has been very hit-or-miss in my experience. My org's goal is to eventually move all app deployments to Meraki, but I'm using Munki as a stop gap because there's a lot of trial and error in getting .app or .pkg installers wrapped in a .dmg that Meraki prefers.

With Chrome I would recommend creating a custom .pkg using the general guidelines on this page: https://documentation.meraki.com/SM/Apps_and_Software/Deploying_Scripts_in_Systems_Manager_using_Sof...

or if you have $99, Jamf sells single licenses for their Composer app: https://www.jamf.com/resources/composer-user-guide/

The documentation Meraki provides was updated within the past few months, and it actually fills in a little more info relative to what was previously published. I concur with the other poster that hosting your installers in Box/Dropbox/etc works better than directly with Meraki due to their overall size limitation (I think 2 GB total).

[PatrickL · Accepted solution]

Mac App Store apps and VPP device assignment are available in the latest version of the Apps page. Under MDM > Apps, click 'Try the new version!', and you'll see the option to add macOS App Store apps, as well as import licensed applications from your VPP, along with a whole host of UI enhancements. 

For troubleshooting packages and DMG installs with software installer, check device logs as described here, and create a support ticket for further assistance as necessary.

[Kirchk]

I wanted to reply back to this thread and indicate that deploying apps to MacOS appears to be working much much better after trying the new version of the 'Apps' menu!

VPP device deployment to Mac machines is working as expected and this feature solves a major roadblock for me.

The other Apps that I had described in the original post (Novell/Micro Focus iPrint, Google Chrome, Java and Flash) have all installed without any fuss. I will like to note that I changed nothing with how I deployed Google Chrome in the past but it appears to be successfully working after trying the new 'Apps' webpage.