AN ALTERNATIVE APP STORE: INSTALLOMATOR (USAGE WITH MICROSOFT INTUNE)

This article is a continuation of another article previously published on the same topic. Before continuing with the lines below, we recommend reading the article “An Alternative App Store: Installomator (Usage with Jamf Pro).”

How Will We Use It?

How you use the Installomator script varies depending on which MDM solution you are using. But roughly speaking, you should be familiar with two separate components of Installomator. One is the script itself, and you can download the latest version, v10.8, from https://github.com/Installomator/Installomator.

The other component is a file called Labels, which contains Installomator’s application repertoire. You can view the contents of this file at https://github.com/Installomator/Installomator/blob/main/Labels.txt

Usage with Microsoft Intune

The original Installomator script was prepared based on the use of Jamf Pro. For this reason, you may not be able to use the Installomator.sh script you download from GitHub directly with Microsoft Intune. Instead, you can use the script below.

!/bin/zsh
Define temporary path
INSTALLER_PATH="/tmp/Installomator.sh"
Download Installomator
echo "Downloading Installomator…"
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Installomator/Installomator/main/Installomator.sh -o "$INSTALLER_PATH"
Check if download succeeded
if [[ ! -f "$INSTALLER_PATH" ]]; then
echo "Failed to download Installomator."
exit 1
fi
Make it executable
chmod +x "$INSTALLER_PATH"
Run Installomator to install Adobe Reader DC
echo "Running Installomator for Adobe Reader DC…"
sudo "$INSTALLER_PATH" adobereaderdc DEBUG=0 >> /var/log/installomator.log 2>&1
echo "Done. Check /var/log/installomator.log for details."

1. To save this script you downloaded as an .sh document, open a text document with TextEdit (Macintosh HD/Applications/TextEdit.app).

2. In TextEdit, use the Make Plain Text command from the Format menu and paste the script you copied here. If you look at the last 4 lines of the script, you can see that this command is prepared for Adobe Acrobat Reader. You should change the information here to whichever application you will distribute instead of Acrobat Reader. Especially in the line beginning with sudo, in place of the text adobereaderdc, the name of the application you will distribute must be written exactly as it appears in Installomator’s Labels file.

3. Save the TextEdit document to your desktop. You can give it any name you want. Its extension will be .txt. Manually change the file extension from .txt to .sh.

4. Open the Terminal application (Macintosh HD/Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app).

5. In Terminal, type: chmod +x and drag the document you saved to the desktop into the Terminal window. As a result, you will see that the document’s location on the computer is placed after chmod +x. Don’t forget this small detail; there is a space after the letter x.

6. Log in to the Intune Admin Center.

7. From the left column, select Devices / macOS.

8. On the screen that opens, click the Scripts section.

9. When you enter the Scripts section, you can begin uploading a new script by clicking the +Add button in the upper-left corner.

10. On the screen that opens, you need to give this script a name. Since you will install a separate piece of software with each script you create, it would be appropriate to give a name describing whichever application you will distribute in this name field. Like Slack_Installomator or Chrome. If you wish, you can also fill in the Description section. Click the Next button to proceed to the next screen.

11. On the next screen, you must upload the script you created above. At this step, you should not upload the Installomator script you downloaded from GitHub.

12. After uploading the script, its content will appear on the screen. This area is read-only, meaning you cannot modify it.

13. Among the options below the script, set the Run as Signed-in User option to No. By default, scripts you send from here will be installed with root user privileges.

14. If you select Yes for the Hide script notifications on devices option, the notifications within the script will not be conveyed to the user. This can be useful for performing a silent installation.

15. The Script Frequency option is used to determine how often the script you send is applied. You may want some scripts to run repeatedly every day. But when you are going to distribute an application with Installomator, you do not want the application to be reinstalled every day or every week. This would create unnecessary network traffic. So you should leave this field as Not Configured.

16. The Max number of times to retry if script fails option is used to determine how many times it will be retried if a problem occurs during script installation. This step is important because such scripts are not sent to devices proactively like Configuration profiles. You can select the 3 times option to have it retry at least 3 times.

17. Click the Next button to proceed to the next step.

18. On the Assignments page that opens, specify which user or group you want to perform this application distribution for. You can proceed to the last step by clicking the Next button.

19. In the Review + add step, you can review your settings one last time, click the Add button, and carry out the distribution.

Photo by Mariia Shalabaieva on Unsplash