macOS Upgrades and Updates Using a Mass Action Command

Technical Paper: Deploying macOS Upgrades and Updates with Jamf Pro

Solution
Application
Content Type
Technical Documentation
Utilities & Services
ft:locale
en-US
Important:

Jamf recommends updating operating systems on computers using managed software updates. For more information, see Managed Software Updates in the Jamf Pro Documentation.

You can update macOS on an individual computer or group of computers by sending a mass action command to computers. You can use a mass action command to update macOS on target computers that are supervised or enrolled via a PreStage enrollment in Jamf Pro. This method is recommended for computers with Apple silicon to install macOS updates without the need for a user with volume ownership privileges to authorize the updates using their password. Instead, macOS requests a previously-escrowed Bootstrap Token from Jamf Pro to authorize the update.

For more information on volume ownership and Bootstrap Tokens, see Use secure token, bootstrap token, and volume ownership in deployments in Apple Platform Deployment.

To use the mass action command workflow, you need to identify target computers. You can do this using one of the following methods:

  • Simple search

  • Advanced search

  • Static group

  • Smart group

Note:

You can increase software download speeds for computers when content caching from Apple is enabled on your network. For more information, see Intro to content caching in Apple Platform Deployment.

Best Practice:

Using an Advanced Search to Identify Target Computers

Create an advanced computer search similar to the following to find and target managed computers with a macOS version lower than the desired target version:
Screenshot of criteria for an advanced search with the first criteria set to Supervised is Yes, and the the second criteria set to Operating System Version less than 13.0.