munki

This is the official release of Munki 7.1.1, a bug-fix release of the Munki tools.

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: 7.1.2.5700

  • Components:
    • com.googlecode.munki.core 7.1.2.5700
    • com.googlecode.munki.admin 7.1.2.5700
    • com.googlecode.munki.app 7.1.2.5700
    • com.googlecode.munki.app_usage 7.1.2.5700
    • com.googlecode.munki.launchd 7.0.0.5320
    • com.googlecode.munki.pythonlibs 6.7.0.5293
    • com.googlecode.munki.libs 5.5

Changes since 7.1.1

• A fix for an issue where Munki would trigger an aggressive update notifcation, claiming macOS was many days out of date, even though a new version of macOS was first available today. Thanks to @jamesez. https://github.com/munki/munki/commit/27af6fc7aa47f410f55d1b271db937d6ee1a0ec4 https://github.com/munki/munki/commit/c3ea21c9c754611c5d78364f05a94abc0a45adf7

• manifestutil: A fix for searching for text in string "fields" in manifests. Thanks to @dziermeier. #1355 https://github.com/munki/munki/commit/a5525f3b048ad56e9afa7429194e0953dea27b42

A complete list of changes between 7.1.1 and 7.1.2 is here: https://github.com/munki/munki/compare/v7.1.1...v7.1.2

New features in Munki 7.1 (and 7.1.1 and 7.1.2)

• 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

Other 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.

Additional details

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

See details on this new feature here.

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.