Remote Software Deployment

Hi,

We are looking to deploy the updated version of our antivirus software (Symantec Endpoint Protection). Before anyone comments that Macs either don't need AV, or asks why I'm using SEP, it's entirely out of my hands and I'm just doing as I'm told - or at least trying to.

We have been unable to push out the update as we (OK, I) neglected to enable Remote Login on the Mac image before deploying it to 86 Macs across the network.

As you can probably understand, I don't really want to visit 86 Macs to manually enable this. I did try to write a login script to enable this, but it doesn't seem to do anything. Entering the command into Terminal prompts for credentials, after which it works. I can only assume that it is prompting for the password while my script is running.

This is one of the commands I tried:

sudo launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/ssh.plist

Here's the other:

systemsetup -setremotelogin on

Both have the same result.

To cut a long story short, I'm going to want to update the AV and then deploy some other software:

Munki Client
Speaker Mute
OS Security Updates

I think we need Remote Login on but I've still left Remote Management off because I seem to recall that stops RealVNC from working.

Could anyone advise please?

Thanks,

Gary

Well, there's a way around that. It's insecure as hell, but assuming your admin password is 'foo' then you could do:



Code:
echo foo | sudo -S systemsetup -setremotelogin on
As I said, insecure as hell since your admin password is in there in plain text. However, it *would* work. I'll leave you to decide how bothered you are about the security implications!

Oh, did I remember to mention it's insecure as hell? ;-)

Click to expand...

How did you know my admin password?

I was trying to avoid going down that route, but it's definitely handy knowing that this can be achieved with the "echo" command if absolutely necessary!

You mean it's not Password1?

Click to expand...

No, but I was going to change it to that! I'll have to think of another one now!

I've not had the opportunity to test that command today but I will be doing so tomorrow. Presumably it works with the local admin password and not domain admin, so although it's bad, it's not as bad as domain admin. If I used something like Automate I could make it very slightly more secure, enough in fact that the users couldn't access the keyboard or mouse while it is running. I'll give that a go tomorrow.

Thanks,

Gary