Do you have automatic update installs enabled on OS X?

[Jollity]

For our new macs, I am trying to decide what to do with the App store settings for "automatically check for updates", in particular "Install app updates" and "Install OS X updates".

 

I do not want users bothered with update prompts, but the automatic updates do not seem to allow me any say over when they install, so I am concerned they might decide to do so during lessons. This question seems to apply whether or not I use the Software Update service to approve which updates I want to go out.

 

I found this useful article, that points out that turning off automatic updates can cause background updates to be disabled for various security systems like XProtect and Gatekeeper, and gives some rather fiddly sounding workarounds.

 

It would be very helpful to know what other people are doing with these settings.

[pete]

Yes. 17 Macs that pull updates from the Software Update Service running on a Mac Mini with OS X Server. We're using Munki for deploying other applications so the clients pull updates* when they check for application updates from the inhouse "Managed Software Centre".

 

Look into Munki and Munki Admin and see if they do what you want. Our Macs check for (and install) updates when no-one's logged into them. If they need to reboot they'll do so.

 

*you need to tell Munki that it's OK to do this - it's off by default.

Edited June 10, 2015 by pete

[Jollity]

Thank you, @pete, that is really helpful.

 

Our Macs check for (and install) updates when no-one's logged into them.

Is that the default behaviour from enabling automatic update install or did you do something to configure that?

 

What are the benefits of Munki over the app deployment in profile manager (which I have not tested yet)?

Edited June 10, 2015 by elsiegee40

[Norphy]

We did have but we made the decision to turn them off last year. The main reason was because when they were turned on, they didn't always apply consistently across all of the Macs. There was no central reporting as to whether they were installed or not. The final straw was when a point update changed the way that Final Cut Pro worked and handled its files. Some Macs had the old version, some didn't.

 

We decided to push operating system and Safari updates over SCCM and to update app store apps during operating system refreshes.