Block software update or at least the notificaitons

AVmcclint
Honored Contributor

Because of the 10.12.5 breaking 802.1x problem, I have a desperate need to block or kill the Mac notifications end users get to install system updates. I have alerted everyone to please keep clicking "Later>Remind me tomorrow" option on the notification, but accidents do happen and a few users have been updated. Because of the way our network is architected, it is a serious pain to manually fix it after the fact. I do have a rebuilt Config Profile built that appears to fix the problem pro-actively and after the fact. The problem is that there is a situation at one of our locations that is blocking all MDM actions and prevents me from sending MDM commands to remove the old and install the new. I have to wait for InfoSec and our network engineers to fix the problem - however long that will be. In the meantime, I need to find a way to remove even the accidental possibility of updating to 10.12.5 until the MDM blockage has been resolved. I can't push a profile with these settings because they'll never make it to the intended recipients. Is there a command I can push via Profile (because those still work) that will completely kill all softwareupdate checks and nagging? It also needs to be reversible.

4 REPLIES 4

AVmcclint
Honored Contributor

I believe something like this will work softwareupdate --ignore "macOS Sierra Update-10.12.5" but at this point I want ALL software updates to be ignored so users aren't notified of ANY available updates... at least until I can get the MDM blockage cleared up and I can move forward again.

AVmcclint
Honored Contributor

I also just discovered that even if I run that command, the 10.12.5 update still appears in Mac AppStore > Updates.

StoneMagnet
Contributor III

@AVmcclint Sending the command sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate CatalogURL http://non.existent.address/ to your machines should effectively neuter the softwareupdate command. Send sudo defaults delete /Library/Preferences/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate CatalogURL to restore functionality. This does assume you're not running your own SUS. If you are, just turn off automatic enabling of updates and disable the 10.12.5 update on your SUS.

Cornoir
Contributor II

In the JSS use Restricted Software to stop the App process and delete it.