Brave New World of Subscriptions & setting up Macs for others

Have a look at the MacEnterprise mailing list and related. Also see the Munki project. Munki and MDM stuff can be used to get apps to the end-users, and Munki is free, and Apple’s MDM solution —currently unfortunately misnamed macOS Server—is available inexpensively.

There are discussions of creating copies of software to install.

Links to some of the available resources and discussions and archives...

http://www.macenterprise.org/mailing-list

https://www.munki.org/

Der Flounder | Seldom updated, occasionally insightful.

http://krypted.com/

Also check with the Apple Business folks at your local Apple store, as they can have some suggestions.

As for coordinating a user’s passwords across systems, that’s usually done using a directory server service, and often with Windows Active Directory or another LDAP directory server. macOS clients can be “bound” to the directory server, which means the passwords and other details are conmon across all systems sharing that directory server and its replica servers.

As was mentioned, macOS with Server.app installed is now effectively an MDM package, and not a network server. The current version of Server.app does have a directory server, but I’m skeptical around hoe long that’ll continue to be available, and you probably already have a different directory server around; AD or otherwise. Other than as an MDM, I wouldn’t usually consider macOS with Server.app installed; not any more.

As for the passwords? Remote Access into a problematic app is available through various means, though Apple Remote Desktop (ARD) app is likely a good fit for what you’re up to here, too. The user can sit at their Mac, and you can access it remotely, and they can enter their passwords.

I prefer to avoid knowing the passwords of the end-users. That for accountability and auditing reasons. Shared accounts and shared access credentials tends to end up in a quagmire, either for the end-users or for the IT folks. Or for both.

Yes, Server.app was cheap and it worked well, and that's why a number of us were using it.

But before you purchase Server.app, have a very careful look at what Server (doesn't) provide now, as of the most current 5.7.1 release.

There were massive deprecations in what the Server.app tools provides.

Why this newest release wasn't called V6 or such is beyond me. It's very different from earlier releases.

Server.app is now little more than an MDM tool, and it's definitely not what I'd consider a network server.

One of the three network services still offered by Server.app is the Open Directory LDAP server. If you're in an organization with Microsoft Windows, the Windows folks will almost certainly already have an Active Directory LDAP configuration either locally, or they'll have hosted AD via Microsoft Azure. You won't need Open Directory, if that's the case. You can tie into the Microsoft directory.

Whether the other two services are useful to you?

You are pragmatically part of your organization's IT, here. Your organization's IT management is unfortunately unhelpful, and I'd tend to escalate that to senior management to sort out.

The directory services—among other uses—coordinate passwords across all systems, as well as contact information and other details. It's how the same password works across all services and all systems. The directory is how—for instance—IT can remove the entry for a retired or retired user in one place, and have that user's access disabled across all connected systems.

Running macOS with Server.app installed—running a network server—is probably not what you want to be doing here. But you're going to have to run a server—though not with Server.app, most likely—for Munki and other services.

For your purposes and until senior management sorts out IT and until your Macs are bound to the directory server, Apple Remote Desktop is probably the best of the available options, with the user at their system. With Munki or related for provisioning software.

But again, you're very much pragmatically part of your organization's IT, and you're not getting the support that you should be. Which is on management.

Maybe Server edition of the OS?

What's new in macOS Server - Apple Support