X World Sessions – 2023

---

How can you ensure that you're doing a stellar job of supporting the people in your organization who use Apple devices? In this session, Weldon and Arek share the patterns of success for Apple admins that they've seen over their time as consultants, trainers, and more recently, working at an MDM vendor. It's 2023. Mac has been around for 39 years, and Mac OS X turned 22 a week ago. iPhone and iPhoneOS (now iOS) was released nearly 16 years ago in 2007. And almost 13 years ago, Apple introduced iPad, iOS 4, and the beginnings of MDM in 2010. Some of us have been administering Apple devices for literally decades. Others are new to the Apple platform, after building their careers taking care of Windows or other devices. And let's not forget the accidental administrator, who fell into taking care of technology as part of a different primary role. Successful Apple admins have these practices and values in common: •Put users first •Focus on the outcome instead of the process •Align with Apple •Embrace change •Simplify Weldon and Arek will leave you with concrete ways to adopt those patterns and bring more value in your role.

About the Presenter

Arek Dreyer is a Senior Product Engineer at Kandji, the Apple device management and security platform. Before joining Kandji in 2021, Dreyer spent over two decades as an independent consultant, author, and trainer, and helped maintain and update several books and courses that supported Apple training and certification programs. He’s looking forward to returning to X World again and visiting Melbourne for the first time. Weldon Dodd started his career running the Mac lab and the NeXT lab at a university where he was introduced to TCP/IP and the Web, and then went into wireless telecom just as that industry was introducing digital networks and Internet access. After teaching high school history and coaching in a Colorado state champion soccer program, Weldon spent the following decade in professional services automating large Apple deployments and running the Apple Training Center in Colorado. Weldon joined Kandji in 2020 where he has built and led several teams, and now leads product strategy.

---

swiftDialog is an open source admin utility app for macOS 11+ written in SwiftUI to allow bash or python (or other) scripts to display popup dialogs, provide user interaction and other workflows. This talk will go through what swiftDialog is as an introduction to newcomers as well as go over some of the new features present in swiftDialog 2 and finish off with some demonstration workflows and Q and A if time allows.

About the Presenter

Bart has worked for the CSIRO for over 20 years and is based in Canberra. Bart currently works for CSIRO’s desktop infrastructure team and leads development for the Mac and Linux Desktop SOE’s and manages 1000+ macOS workstations using JAMF, Munki and other open source tools. He has contributed to Munki, macOSLAPS, Nudge and Outset open source projects, as well as developed swiftDialog from scratch in SwiftUI and released as open source to the macadmins community.

---

After introducing Shortcut's ability to work with Jamf APIs at JNUC 2022, Damo will further demonstrate how this new approach can save Apple Admins time, effort and brainspace in their day-to-day workflows. With the theory and background well and truly covered last year (watch here: https://youtube.com/watch?v=56ej8gZfj38), this X World session will be all about real-world examples of the Shortcuts in action.

About the Presenter

Bending Apple devices to his will since 2011. Melbourne Apple Admins Organising Team. Apple Presales Engineer @ CompNow. Automation enthusiast. Cyborg.

---

Modern auth and passwordless terms are becoming more and more common, and this session is designed to bridge a knowledge gap about pushing certificates to Apple devices in order to replace old authentication methods such as username/password. This session will explain the security around certificates and why things like trust chain and compliance are required.

About the Presenter

Daniel is a Senior Consulting Engineer with Jamf and has experience with large-scale deployments, bespoke workflows and custom scripting. He has been with Jamf for over 8 years and in that time has worked with environments all over the world in almost every vertical you can imagine.

---

This presentation will explore the use of GitHub Workflows for managing and automating the process of building, signing, and releasing macOS packages. Solutions like Jamf App Installers and Insallomator have come a long way and make you question whether maintaining a complex AutoPKG server is worthwhile. Unfortunately, most organisations still have a few vendors whose software needs repackaging. This solution aims to bridge the gap and bring automation and simplicity to maintaining those last few packages. The demonstration will highlight the versatility of GitHub Workflows for Mac Admins and show how it can be applied beyond traditional software development.

About the Presenter

James is a seasoned technology expert with over a decade of experience in enterprise systems. He is driven by a passion for understanding the relationship between technology and its users in the workplace. Throughout his career, James has worked in a variety of roles, including at Jamf, MSPs, and in enterprise environments. He is currently leading the Client Platform Engineering team at SEEK, responsible for overseeing both Apple and Windows platforms in a flexible "Choose-Your-Own-Device" organisation.

---

This conference presentation will cover the basics of Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) and focuses on how GitHub Actions can be utilized by Mac Admins. I'll give a brief overview of GitHub Actions and its functions, will showcase how it can automate various workflows for Mac administration, and how you can make your work more efficient and streamlined.

About the Presenter

Unlike the speaker bio used for his 2022 talk at Mac Dev Ops YVR, James didn't leave this one to the last minute (this may or may not be related to his recently diagnosed ADHD). Despite all of that, James is a Staff Engineer currently working at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia where he is helping to craft the best experience for engineers in Australia. You can often hear hosts and guests alike say "Sorry James" on the Mac Admins Podcast that he edits each week. Outside of work, you can find James with his family, building the latest LEGO set or trying to build a new Magic Commander deck with his kids.

---

This talk covers the Australian Signal Directorate's Essential 8 Strategies to Mitigate Cyber Security Incidents and will discuss how the E8 applies to Apple computers and devices and problems and solutions that arise from using a largely Windows based strategy. The Essential 8 was created by the Australian Signals Directorate as a way of increasing the cyber maturity of both Australian government departments and Australian organisations. It was developed both with reference to other IT security frameworks and also the ASD's own experience in protecting and compromising organisations. The E8 was written for controlled and standardised environments, assuming that endpoints will be Windows computers or servers and the organisation will have total control (and ownership) of the device. This talk will explore who the E8 really applies to and how we can make Apple computers and devices work with the E8 along with other impediments such as BYOD and developers :).

About the Presenter

Jon Rhoades is the IT and Cyber Security Manager for St Vincent's Insitute of Research in Melbourne. He almost has a Master of Cyber Security from Charles Sturt University and is a Certified Information Security Manager (CISM). He is also a prolific XWorld speaker, having presented at most X Worlds over the past 10 years.

---

It can feel daunting when you wake up to a decision that you are now the 'Mac' person. What are the basic building blocks that make up an Apple device management environment? It’s often tempting to go straight into the technical details, but if this is at the expense of some common-sense fundamentals it can lead to frustration and even more technical debt. Where do you go to learn the basics of managing Apple devices? What community resources are available? We will cover some of the fundamentals that can often be easy to overlook and are probably also going to be great to cover again for the seasoned Mac Admin. Hopefully at the end of this session you will no longer feel daunted, and maybe even excited about what lays ahead!

About the Presenter

Lynette came to the world of managing Apple devices after a career in e-commerce and ERP. In her Customer Success role at Jamf, she has helped many people across Education, Enterprise and beyond who were new to managing Apple devices, ensuring they get the most out of their environment.

---

Apple has a deep focus on security and privacy, and as Mac Admins, we are often asked to help secure the devices we manage. Now that the days of Kernel Panics due to rogue KEXTS are long gone, what are some of the tools that Apple has provided to allow detection and analysis of unwanted events on our managed devices? In this presentation we will explore Apple's Endpoint Security Framework, Unified Logging and other concepts that are essential to securing macOS. Rather than looking at them from the viewpoint of a developer building security tools or a security researcher hunting for threats, we will be exploring as Mac Admins, wanting to know how these tools work, the impact they have on our devices, and the rich source of information they give us access to.

About the Presenter

Marcus Ransom has been managing Apple technology across enterprise and education for nearly two decades. He is a Senior Sales Engineer at Jamf as well as one of the hosts of the Mac Admins Podcast and the founder of Melbourne Apple Admins.

---

This presentation will focus on using Splunk to capture Jamf data and then create dashboards and alerts. Using the Jamf Pro add-on and web-hooks you will learn how to track application patching, policy failures, API usage and much more. If you would like to learn about making data-driven decisions to prioritise and operationalise your Jamf deployment, this presentation is for you.

About the Presenter

Martin has considerable experience working with Apple products. With more than fifteen years of experience both in Australia and Europe, he has worked in a range of environments from small service providers to large enterprise environments. He is currently a Senior Engineer in the Client Platform Team at SEEK.

---

Are your users tired of repeatedly having to sign into Teams, OneDrive, Outlook? Did you know you can now provide a single sign on experience across Safari and all Microsoft native applications. In this session we will take an under the covers look on the Apple Authentication Service framework and how it works. You will then learn how you can configure and deploy the Enterprise SSO plug-in to your iOS, iPadOS and macOS devices.

About the Presenter

Merill Fernando is a Senior Product Manager in the Microsoft Identity (Azure Active Directory) engineering team and is from Melbourne, Australia. In his role, he partners with the Security, Identity and Desktop engineering teams of strategic enterprise customers in Australia to build and deploy their Identity strategy. This involves establishing long term advisory relationship with customers; work with the engineering team throughout the whole engineering cycle; training customers, partners, and field in our identity products and services; and producing reusable intellectual property. Merill is the author of some popular Microsoft open-source apps and tools such as [cmd.ms] (https://cmd.ms), Graph X-Ray (https://graphxray.merill.net) and Graph PowerShell converter (https://graphpowershell.merill.net). You can also find Merill on Slack (MacAdmins), Twitter (@merill) and Mastodon (@merill@infosec.exchange)

---

This presentation will discuss - at a high level - how I have made use of the JAMF Pro and Classic APIs, Log Scraping, and Python Libraries to generate useful reports. Reports such as: - Patch Compliance - Installed Applications - Restricted Application Violations Have been generated to make data-driven decisions to improve the security posture of the environment. Ideally, Attendees should have a basic grasp of Python prior to attendance. This presentation is intended for Mac system administrators who are responsible for managing and maintaining Macs within an organization.

About the Presenter

Stuart Lamont is a skilled and experienced mac System Administrator with over a decade of experience in the field. He has a diverse background, having worked for an MSP (Managed Service Provider), in K-12 education, and in the banking industry. In addition to his professional work, Stuart is also a YouTuber with a sizable following. He runs a YouTube channel called Hive Mind Automation, where he produces reviews and tutorials on various home automation gadgets. In his free time, Stuart is passionate about home automation, 3D printing, and electronics, which he enjoys as hobbies.

---

Software Update is possibly the least understood topic for Mac Admins, and it's undergone a substantial amount of chnage in the last three OS releases. This talk is about understanding what Software Update is - and what it's not - from an MDM's perspective, from a user's perspective, and from an engineer's perspective. Apple has designed an incredible tool to update their highly secure operating system, but it has its quirks and knowing them will make you a better admin. We’ll cover strategies for making good choices around software update.

About the Presenter

Tom is the Director of Product for Device Management at JumpCloud, the Producer for the Mac Admins Podcast, and the Co-Chair of Mac Admins Foundation. He lives in Washington, DC with his wife Tiffany, son Charlie, and cat Macro.