Learning munki - help!

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TryoneE

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Oct 22, 2018, 8:12:06 PM10/22/18
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Hello. I recently was tasked with learning munki as part of my job. While I understand it at very basic level, I'm really having a hard time understanding certain basics aspects such as manifests and catalogs and how they work. I've completed the Demonstration Setup exercise but am still struggling.

For as much time as I have spend trying to wrap my head around munk I'm still waiting for that moment where it just clicks. Until this happens and without these basics I cannot really move forward, I feel.

Any suggestions? I tend to learn visually so any introductory videos, for example, would be helpful. Or any other general advice on how to best learn munki.

Thank you!


Mike Solin

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Oct 22, 2018, 9:59:34 PM10/22/18
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Hey, welcome. :)

What really helped me was learning to use MunkiAdmin, a third party GUI tool for managing a Munki repository:


I still use it to edit pkginfo files, manifests, and catalogs - I use munkiimport on the command line to import everything, though.

Also, there are tons of videos out there, describing Munki. I did two presentations for Greater Philadelphia Mac Admins (our local meetup group):


There are also some conference videos on the Munki wiki:


There’s a lot of information packed into the wiki, so I’d suggest searching there. It’s a great resource.

I also found searching both the munki-discuss and the munki-dev (since that was the original list) very helpful. In addition, now there's the #munki channel on the MacAdmins Slack, too:


Hope this helps!

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Gregory Neagle

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Oct 23, 2018, 11:49:46 AM10/23/18
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On Oct 22, 2018, at 9:42 AM, TryoneE <dar...@mactechs.com> wrote:

Hello. I recently was tasked with learning munki as part of my job. While I understand it at very basic level, I'm really having a hard time understanding certain basics aspects such as manifests and catalogs and how they work. I've completed the Demonstration Setup exercise but am still struggling.

For as much time as I have spend trying to wrap my head around munk I'm still waiting for that moment where it just clicks. Until this happens and without these basics I cannot really move forward, I feel.

Any suggestions? I tend to learn visually so any introductory videos, for example, would be helpful.


Not 100% convinced that videos add much to learning something that is mostly command-line, but YMMV

Or any other general advice on how to best learn munki.

Thank you!



Daniel Warren

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Oct 24, 2018, 8:04:07 AM10/24/18
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A couple of things that really confused me in the beginning were how manifests and catalogs work together.  Also I was coming from Casper where everything is controlled from the server side.  With munki the server is essentially just a repository.  The manifest determined on a preference file on the device.  When a client connects it checks to see if that manifest can be found on the server.  If it finds it it checks out what installs are available on the manifest.  Here's where the catalog comes in.  

A catalog is a collection of packages that are available for install.  You can have several catalogs.  A good example is lets say you have a testing catalog that has all the latest downloads in it but they haven't been tested for bugs yet.  You also have a production catalog which has new stuff that has been tested.  So for example you might have munkitools-3.4.1.357.pkg in testing, but have munkitools-3.4.0.3555.pkg in production.  Each manifest can be set to have access to either of these catalogs.  Here's where it gets a little confusing.  I'll use my environment as an example.  I work in a school and there's certain things that I want only faculty to have access to.  So I have a faculty and a student manifest.  I want both to use the production version of packages since I don't want either to run into bugs.  However, I have different packages available on each manifest and certain forced installs e.g. I have a package that installs a teacher account on the faculty devices, but a different package that installs a student account on student devices.  Both of those packages are the tested production versions, but I want them on seperate manifests.  This is all because the manifest listed in the preference file on the device tells the device what packages it can see on munki.

Some easy mistakes to make early on are to have a full catalog then create a manifest add your optional installs to the manifest and wonder why nothing shows up.  Then you realize that you never pointed the manifest towards a particular catalog.  Hope this helps.

Daniel Ebeck

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Oct 25, 2018, 2:44:29 AM10/25/18
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Hi,

I describe the process to people learning munki as a restaurant. The Repo is the kitchen. Each catalog is a menu and each manifest is an individual order.

The order of catalogs in a manifest matters. Put the testing ones above the production one, otherwise, you will never get the testing packages installed.

Welcome to the party!
Daniel.

TryoneE

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Oct 26, 2018, 10:39:58 AM10/26/18
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Thanks everyone for all the suggestions and advice. Most appreciated and helpful!

TryoneE

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Oct 29, 2018, 12:03:43 PM10/29/18
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One thing I can't seem to understand is why there is more than one catalog. If manifests dictate the software to be installed, why can't all the software be listed in one catalog?


On Monday, October 22, 2018 at 5:12:06 PM UTC-7, TryoneE wrote:

Gregory Neagle

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Oct 29, 2018, 12:06:13 PM10/29/18
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On Oct 29, 2018, at 9:03 AM, TryoneE <dar...@mactechs.com> wrote:

One thing I can't seem to understand is why there is more than one catalog. If manifests dictate the software to be installed, why can't all the software be listed in one catalog?

It can if you want.

But a deployment/testing/production deployment workflow is very common (and highly recommended), and Munki's catalogs make it easy to implement one.


-Greg
 

On Monday, October 22, 2018 at 5:12:06 PM UTC-7, TryoneE wrote:
Hello. I recently was tasked with learning munki as part of my job. While I understand it at very basic level, I'm really having a hard time understanding certain basics aspects such as manifests and catalogs and how they work. I've completed the Demonstration Setup exercise but am still struggling.

For as much time as I have spend trying to wrap my head around munk I'm still waiting for that moment where it just clicks. Until this happens and without these basics I cannot really move forward, I feel.

Any suggestions? I tend to learn visually so any introductory videos, for example, would be helpful. Or any other general advice on how to best learn munki.

Thank you!



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