Security Basics mailing list archives
Re: automatic update on Mac OS X
From: "Damon McMahon" <inst_karma () hotmail com>
Date: Sun, 31 Aug 2003 10:13:18 +1000
Zac, You might wish to check out the softwareupdatecommand line tool available in MacOS X. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a man page, so I've included the output from my iBook to give you an idea of how it works:
% sudo softwareupdate Password: Software Update Tool Copyright 2002 Apple Computer, Inc. Software Update found the following new or updated software: - AirPortSW-3.1.1 AirPort Software (3.1.1), 7940K - restart required - Bluetooth-1.2.1 Bluetooth Software (1.2.1), 4370K - restart required - iMovie-3.0.3 iMovie (3.0.3), 86830K - iPod201-2.0.1 iPod Software (2.0.1), 16000K - iPod130-1.3 iPod Software (1.3), 5830K To install an update, run this tool with the item name as an argument. e.g. 'softwareupdate <item> ...' %You should be able to write a shell script (I would use awk(1), but I guess perl would handle it just as well] and schedule it with cron(8) to provide a degree of automation - I'm not sure what would happen for the updates where a restart is required, however.
Best of luck.
From : "Zachary Mutrux" <zmutrux () compumentor org> To : "Security-Basics" <security-basics () securityfocus com> Subject : automatic update on Mac OS X Date : Fri, 29 Aug 2003 09:17:08 -0700 MIME-Version: 1.0 Message-ID: <IPECIABPNKGFPBEPDLAEIEMACBAA.zmutrux () compumentor org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit MIME-Version: 1.0 Message-ID: <IPECIABPNKGFPBEPDLAEIEMACBAA.zmutrux () compumentor org> Is there a way to automate the download and installation of updates in Mac OS X? In Mac OS 9, the Software Update Control Panel included a checkbox labeled "Ask me before installing new software". If you unchecked the box,patches would be automatically installed. That checkbox doesn't exist in MacOS X. I have done some searching on google, but didn't come up with a way to automate patch application. I'm just wondering if anyone knows how to do this. An AppleScript, maybe? Scheduled as a cron job?
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Current thread:
- Re: automatic update on Mac OS X Sebastian Schneider (Sep 02)
- <Possible follow-ups>
- Re: automatic update on Mac OS X Sebastian Schneider (Sep 02)
- RE: automatic update on Mac OS X matt willson (Sep 02)
- Re: automatic update on Mac OS X Dave Botsch (Sep 02)
- Re: automatic update on Mac OS X Damon McMahon (Sep 02)
- RE: automatic update on Mac OS X Zachary Mutrux (Sep 02)
- RE: automatic update on Mac OS X Dean Saxe (Sep 02)
- Re: automatic update on Mac OS X Schneider Sebastian (Sep 02)
- Re: automatic update on Mac OS X SMiller (Sep 02)
- RE: automatic update on Mac OS X Zachary Mutrux (Sep 02)
- Re: automatic update on Mac OS X Martin Brecher (Sep 03)
- RE: automatic update on Mac OS X Zachary Mutrux (Sep 02)