This guide will enable you to install and manage applications on your remote macOS® and Windows® systems that you manage through JumpCloud®, at scale. JumpCloud does not function as a system’s application manager, but you can pair it with free package managers to consolidate your administrative tasks in your JumpCloud Admin Portal.
Note: We recommend vetting each script before use in a production environment.
Windows Systems
You will first need to install a package manager on your Windows systems. We recommend Chocolatey, which has an open repository of more than 7,000 applications that is continually updated.
Install Chocolatey on Your Systems
Import into your Admin Console the command to download Chocolatey by using this command in the JumpCloud PowerShell Module:
Import-JCCommand -URL ‘https://git.io/Je0G5’
Once you’ve populated the command in the Commands tab of your Admin Console, you can then apply and execute the command to a group of Windows systems or individual Windows systems.
Leverage JumpCloud + Chocolatey
Once systems have Chocolatey installed and the system agent has restarted, you can apply Chocolatey commands to remotely install and manage applications on those systems.
For example, you can enter the following command into the Commands tab of your Admin Console to install Google Chrome:
choco install googlechrome -y
Application-specific commands are available via our GitHub repository and Chocolatey’s open repository.
Update Chocolatey-Managed Applications
In the Admin Console, you can run commands manually or schedule them to run in the future, on repeat, or in response to a webhook trigger.
You can populate a command to call Chocolatey and update Chocolatey-managed applications on a specific schedule. Enter the following command in the Commands tab of your Admin Console:
choco upgrade all
Under “Launch Event,” select “Run as Repeating” and specify how often you want the command to run.
macOS Systems
You will first need to install a package manager on your macOS systems. We recommend AutoPKG, though you’ll want to ensure your environment has the appropriate requirements in place first, including Xcode already installed and at least one repository to search, download, and install applications.
Install AutoPKG on Your Systems
Import into your Admin Console the command to download AutoPKG by using this command in the JumpCloud PowerShell Module:
Import-JCCommand -URL ‘https://git.io/Je2xd’
Once you’ve populated the command in the Commands tab of your Admin Console, you can then apply and execute the command to a group of macOS systems or individual macOS systems.
Leverage JumpCloud + AutoPKG
Once systems have AutoPKG installed, you can apply AutoPKG recipes to remotely install and manage applications on those systems.
Members of the macOS admin community have built recipes for use, which you can add to your own repository via their specific URLs, as long as you trust and have vetted them in advance. For example, you can enter the following command into the Commands tab of your Admin Console to pull the AutoPKG recipes repository:
autopkg repo-add https://github.com/autopkg/recipes
You can then use specific recipes from those repositories to download applications to your systems. For example, you can enter the following command into the Commands tab of your Admin Console to install Firefox:
autopkg install firefox.install
Update AutoPKG Applications
To update an existing application, you can run the install command as shown above, which will compare the installed application and the downloaded application and evaluate whether an update is necessary.
Additional Resources
If you’d like to see more remote device and application management techniques in action, we recorded a webinar featuring Richard Hickson, an IT consultant with expertise in commands and custom scripting:
If you’d like to learn more about JumpCloud’s remote command functionality, the following resources are a good place to start:
- Knowledge Base Article: Getting Started: Commands
- GitHub: JumpCloud Commands Gallery
- GitHub: JumpCloud Chocolatey Commands
- GitHub: JumpCloud AutoPKG Commands
We’ve also compiled an Admin Guide to Working from Home with JumpCloud, which includes security best practices and JumpCloud features that can help you put them into place.