munki/munki v7.1.0rc1

Munki 7.1 Release Candidate 1

on GitHub

This is a release candidate of Munki 7.1, a feature update release of the Munki tools.

Please test this build for suitability as a production release.

Build info

• This release was built with Xcode 26.2 (17C52) on macOS 26.3 (25D125) via a GitHub Actions workflow here: https://github.com/macadmins/munki-builds. It has been signed and notarized by MacAdmins Open Source.

• Distribution package version: 77.1.0.5677

  • Components:
    • com.googlecode.munki.core 7.1.0.5677
    • com.googlecode.munki.admin 7.1.0.5677
    • com.googlecode.munki.app 7.1.0.5675
    • com.googlecode.munki.app_usage 7.1.0.5677
    • com.googlecode.munki.launchd 7.0.0.5320
    • com.googlecode.munki.pythonlibs 6.7.0.5293
    • com.googlecode.munki.libs 5.5

Changes since Beta 7:

• Managed Software Center: improved behavior when in "aggressive notification mode" and the "Show" Apple updates button is clicked. 10951e8

• managedsoftwareupdate: use the same logic as Managed Software Center when calculating the oldestUpdateDays. 36b798f

• Updated Japanese localization. Thanks to @arubdesu and Koji Arita. #1345

A complete list of changes between 7.1.0b7 and 7.1.0rc1 is here: v7.1.0b6...v7.1.0rc1

New features

• Assisted quit of blocking applications: Managed Software Center can now assist the user with quitting (and relaunching) running applications that block the install of pending updates. Thanks to @jordancalhoun. #1305

  • If the preference is set to allow MSC.app to offer to quit blocking applications, Managed Software Center can now offer to let the user ignore the updates blocked by running applications and just install other pending updates not blocked by open applications. Authored by @gregneagle

  • Similarly, users can now be allowed to skip updates that require a logout or restart, installing any remaining updates.

• Download retries: managedsoftwareupdate can now retry downloads of manifests, catalogs, installer items and the like. This is an attempt to improve behavior when there are transisent network failures. Thanks to @MagerValp. #1307

• The above new features are disabled by default. You must "opt-in" to them by setting new preferences in the ManagedInstalls preferences domain, and by adding new keys and values to pkginfo files. More information is available later in this document.

  • While testing, I'd recommend just setting the new preferences in /Library/Preferences/ManagedInstalls.plist, at least for initial testing on one or two machines.

• LocalOnlyManifest This manifest can now contain default_installs and featured_installs. Thanks to @MagerValp. #1314

Changes

• If configured to notify about Apple updates, Managed Software Center will now warn the user how long macOS has been out-of-date, instead of merely warning how long the current macOS update has been available. (Previously this count got reset each time a new macOS update was released. For example, three days after macOS 26.4 was released, a user with a Mac running 26.3 or earlier would be warned that the update had been available for three days. Yes, this is true, but more importantly, macOS had been out-of-date for 20 days or more.)

• In Managed Software Center, when any modal sheet is open and a background update run occurs, the modal is cancelled and closed. This avoids issues with background updates changing what updates are available/pending, making the modal sheets inaccurate or irrelevant.

• If configured to notify about Apple updates, Apple updates now get their own "section" in the updates view, hopefully making it clearer which updates will be installed by Munki and which users will have to install via other means.

• On macOS 26, if the only available Apple update is a "Background Security Improvement", Managed Software Center will open the Background Security Improvements view in System Settings instead of the Software Update view.

• To support the new features to update non-blocked items from Managed Software Center when there are some items blocked by running applications, the behavior of managedsoftwareupdate --installwithnologout and managedsoftwareupdate --installonly has changed. See here for details.

Caution

There are a lot of code changes here. It's quite possible, even likely, that non-trivial bugs have been introduced. Please test with care, and report bugs and unexpected behaviors ASAP.

Localization help needed

If you've helped by contributing localization updates for earlier Munki 7.1 betas, thank you!

The following languages still need attention:

• Italian
• Spanish
• Russian

See https://github.com/munki/munki/wiki/Localization-Guide-For-Managed-Software-Center and https://github.com/munki/munki/wiki/Munki-7.1-Localization-needs for details.

Managed Software Center assisted quit (and relaunch) of blocking applications

See details on this new feature here.

Testing methods

• An easy way to have some items with running blocking applications is to launch an app, then remove it on disk. For example, you can launch Google Chrome, then run sudo rm -r /Applications/Google\ Chrome.app. Assuming Google Chrome is a managed_install, on the next run, managedsoftwareupdate will see it is missing and download the installer. Since the Chrome app is actually running, though, Managed Software Center will show the install as blocked because Chrome is running. You can use this technique with any item that is an app installed from a disk image.

• You can trigger similar behavior with items installed via Apple packages by launching an application, then using sudo pkgutil --forget <pkgid> to forget the identifier for the pkg that installed the app.

• And of course, you can always manually install an older version of an app and allow managedsoftwareupdate to download the current version.

• An example of an app that won't cleanly exit when "politely" asked to quit is "iTerm". It always displays a confirmation dialog.

• Please test on versions of macOS other than 26.x.

Download retries

See info on this new feature here.

Known issue

If a download is retried, it does not resume a partial (failed) download; it starts again from the beginning.

Testing methods for download retries

• Test with a Mac connected to Ethernet; pull the cable while a download is happening. Wait a bit, and plug in back in.

• Test with a Mac connected to Wifi: turn Wifi off in the middle of a download. Wait a bit, and turn it back on.

• Try shutting the lid on a laptop during a download

• Try pulling the Ethernet cable with a Mac connected to both Ethernet and Wifi