Deploying a macOS DMG app via Intune

The ability to deploy a DMG file to a macOS device has just been released in Intune. This is a real gamer changer in the macOS space, allowing us to publish more applications to a mac device via a simple intuitive interface in the Endpoint Manager console.

If you’re currently deploying win32 apps via Intune then you’ll be familiar with the process outlined here and it’s great that Microsoft has built the wizard to have a similar look as the one we use to push win32apps.

Before we start here are some pre-requisites for deployment as stated by Microsoft:

• The devices need to be managed by Intune – corporate or personal enrolment is supported
• The DMG app needs to be smaller than 2Gb in size
• The Microsoft Intune management agent for macOS is installed – don’t worry about this pre-req since the first app deploy will also deploy out the agent for you.

Creating the DMG app

In the Endpoint Manager admin center, navigate to Apps\macOS and click the Add link. In the App type drop down you will see the new option of macOS app (DMG). Select that and then click Select.

Click the Select app package file link.

Click the folder icon to browse for your DMG file.

I’ve downloaded the VLC player app from https://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-macosx.en_GB.html for this demo. Select your DMG file and click Open.

Click OK.

As I said, if you’ve been uploading the win32app type, things should feel familiar so far. This is the same now when adding in details about the app.

At the App information screen, we need a minimum of Name and Publisher specified. I’ve also added a logo for the app. Click Next when done.

For the Requirements, we have a choice of supported macOS. Choose the OS relevant to yourself as a minimum operating system value and click Next.

The next part of the wizard is the Detection rules, to enter the required information we need to get some information about the application which we can use in our rule.

So take a reference macOS device and install VLC, then run the following commands on it to gather the info:

• defaults read /Applications/<Appname>.app/Contents/Info CFBundleIdentifier
• defaults read /Applications/<Appname>.app/Contents/Info CFBundleVersion

So for VLC the commands are:

• defaults read /Applications/VLC.app/Contents/Info CFBundleIdentifier
• defaults read /Applications/VLC.app/Contents/Info CFBundleVersion

For CFBundleIdentifier the value is org.videolan.vlc and for CFBundleVersion it is 3.0.16.

I can now enter those details for my Detection rules. Note I have set ignore app version to No. I could have set this to Yes as it’s the first time I have installed VLC on my endpoint, however I have set to No so it will user the App version value and check on the endpoint, if a version is already installed it will either upgrade, remain the same or no action if a newer release exists. Click Next.

When it comes to the Assignment, presently we can only target as Required. We do not have Available or Uninstall options. Add in a group to target and click Next.

Click Create at the Review + create screen to complete the configuration of the DMG app.

On the macOS endpoint

As mentioned earlier, the Intune Agent will install automatically, since this is the first time it’s notifying the end user can select what to do here.

The application will appear soon after in the Applications folder.

This was super simple to perform and definitely something that going to be beneficial for supporting customers will macOS devices.