Tag: MDM

Categories
MacAdmin

How To Hold macOS User Identity in 2025

A topic I seem to repeatedly discuss at present: what does modern identity look like on macOS?

More broadly, what does cloud managed identity look like on all endpoints for now and future?

Important context: At time of writing, macOS 26 has just been released, however, none of the new Platform Single Sign-On (PSSO) features are supported by Okta or Entra ID.

The goal of this post is to share opinionated principles of modern cloud driven identity on macOS and similar platforms, with examples of implementation detail that will change/evolve/mature/evolve over time.

I also acknowledge that Apple have changed their language from Mobile Device Management (MDM/MDM Server) to device management service to group platforms that use a mixture of old and new management protocols. I will use MDM interchangeably with device management service regardless if MDM (old) or DDM (Declarative Device Management aka new) protocols are involved.

Edit: credit to @trbridge, @hcodfrie, and @BigMacAdmin on Mac Admins Slack for pointing out some errors above.

Where Identity Is Used

User Identity on macOS has 4 touch points to influence outcomes in this discussion:

  1. Enrolment during Setup Assistant
  2. MDM assignment for policy
  3. macOS User account provisioning (login window)
  4. macOS User Account SSO and password sync

Enrolment & Policy

Enrolment & policy are generally related to one another and driven by the MDM (though some MDM vendors can change the assigned identity on the fly even if initially set to something else at enrolment).

Account Provisioning

Enrolment can influence or control account provisioning as part of Apple’s device management protocols to set or force the user account (nuances per MDM tool implementation).

SSO & Password Sync

A one to one device should NOT password sync IMO. Treat local password on Mac like an iPhone passcode or Windows Hello PIN. A token dance with MFA/passkeys/etc for Single Sign-On (SSO)  access to resources beyond the Mac is the security gate, not the Mac login window.

Device Personas

I strongly believe that with cloud identities driving modern management practices, your device identities should come in 2 “persona” based flavours:

  • One to one
  • Shared

One to one is seen as a personalised device used by a single staff member over a short or long period of time. It typically holds 1 primary user session/data volume and needs to be reset to be used by someone else.

Shared is seen as a device that can be used by multiple people through a given day or week, such as a room based computer, like a computer lab. It supports multiple user sessions/data volumes that people can rapidly log in and out of.

Through the lens of the 4 touch points, here is what I recommend for each persona:

One to one: 

  1. Authenticate at enrolment for the primary benefit of MDM policy based user assignment and optionally for Account Provisioning
  2. Enrolment has assigned your user for user assigned configs like wifi certs
  3. Enrolment can optionally prefill the local Mac user account short name with the prefix of the UPN or the user can create an account themselves. They set a local “passcode”.
  4. SSO for on premise resources uses the Kerberos SSO extension, XCreds, Jamf Connect, or similar. For cloud resources use the SSO extension with Company Portal or Okta Fastpass. No password sync. Only use PSSO if you need the benefits of a joined user assigned device object, possibility of Kerberos SSO and additional conditional access policy controls.

Shared Devices: 

  1. Depending on your security posture and threat models, don’t authenticate at enrolment, or authenticate in a tech driven workflow. Local admin account creation may be automated or need to be created in setup assistant.
  2. User assignment is not required, but dynamic update is optional with capable MDM tooling
  3. Use XCreds or Jamf Connect for cloud driven identity user provisioning/login. Don’t require MFA.
  4. Use Kerberos SSO extension, XCreds, or Jamf Connect for password sync (cloud sync if available) and Kerberos Tickets. Use SSO extension with Company Portal or Okta Fastpass for cloud resource SSO.

Do not use PSSO TODAY for shared devices as the per user registration is buggy and a bad user experience IMO.

If the changes for PSSO in macOS 26 and associated implementation changes by IDPs turn out as expected, my recommendation likely changes.

From AD to Entra with Windows Hello

With or without PSSO, the guidance above works. It follows a similar line of thinking to WHfB (Windows Hello for Business) which already makes sense if you’re an Entra shop.

These concepts may be harder to swallow if you’re still very much an AD (Active Directory) shop.

If your organisation’s answer to autopilot device deployment for Windows was hybrid join instead of Entra join, you know who you are 😅

The one login to rule them all paradigm people were used to with AD joined devices makes sense for shared devices. It doesn’t make sense for personalised devices in 2025 IMO.

It has the “always on network” assumption.

It also assumes resource access control is pretty flat and not dynamic at all.

WHfB Components

WHfB promotes the concept of:

  • Local Credential = PIN
  • Biometric = Face/Finger
  • Directory credential = dir user password
  • Directory trust/SSO = PRT granting

Let’s compare these to Apple device concepts:

iPhone/iPad (one to one):
  • Passcode
  • Face/Touch ID
  • Sign in to Outlook/SaaS apps
  • MS Authenticator w SSO extension inc MFA dance
Mac (one to one):
  • Local User Password
  • Touch ID
  • Sign in to Outlook/SaaS apps
  • Company Portal w SSO extension inc MFA dance

Shared Windows Devices

For shared devices, the model of Windows Entra Joined is:

  • Directory credential at login window (future state passwordless, using something you have like a passkey)
  • The FIRST sign in to a cloud app/Entra auth resource gets you to MFA dance to get your PRT and then SSO is your friend from there.

When To Enforce MFA

I see a lot of confusion around MFAs place when cloud identity is involved with macOS, Windows and other endpoints.

In the AD Bound device paradigm, you always logged in with the current (or cached) credential of your networked user account. Unless you had a fancy implementation from RSA, you probably didn’t worry about hardware tokens or other forms of multi factor authentication at the computer login screen.

That single login WAS your single sign on to all organisation resources connected to the Kerberos motorway, starting with the TGT (Ticket Granting Ticket) that gave you subsequent tickets for each file, print, or authenticated web server you tried to access.

In a cloud identity driven world, it’s your cloud authentication POST LOGIN WINDOW that grants your primary refresh token (PRT). That authentication flow is subject to conditional access policies, and the subsequent access tokens it generates are also subject to their own conditional policies.

That’s Not A Token! This Is A Token!

There is a widespread misconception that WHfB is how you enable or disable your MFA requirement for a cloud resource SSO experience with Windows login.

If you have conditional access policy that says you must MFA to get a PRT and/or access certain cloud resources (like OneDrive), it’s doesn’t matter if you’re logging in from a Entra Joined/managed device or not at all basic level.

What matters is that you perform MFA in USER SPACE to get a PRT and start granting access tokens.

WHfB makes MFA the first thing you do AFTER the windows login screen on an Entra Joined device. In order to get this benefit they REQUIRE you to set a PIN and/or Biometric authentication method.

Without it, you can sign into the PC with just a password, but you don’t have access to any cloud resources until that FIRST MFA to get a full PRT prompted by the first app sign in.

They both don’t require MFA to sign into, especially for a shared device, and only get you to confirm user presence and factors of trust when you’re accessing resources BEYOND the computer.

If you exclude the device/user/source IP from MFA the login window can SSO to apps like OneDrive, similar to the on prem AD sign in days if it suits your security/threat models.

Truthfully? Not a great idea 😅

Back To The Mac

Gee, that was a lot of Windows talk on a Mac blog: yes, yes it was.

The reality is we operate in a lot of technology environments set by standards derived from roots in Kerberos and LDAP, packaged into the Active rather than Open flavour of directory.

Microsoft embraced a while ago that the future was not the old ways, but identity founded on a different set of rules. You couldn’t confine to the network perimeter, but had to design identity systems that had infinite collaborators at a global scale.

This new set of rules says how we authenticate and prove our identity will need to become increasingly complex in its defence to threats, which meant the focus of protection needed to change.

We’re trying to prevent a threat actor from accessing unauthorised resources, not block a user from logging into their machine and recover from a legitimate problem.

If you authenticate and prove levels of trust to provision a computer and your user account, why do you need to prove that trust every time you hit the login window and every time your PRT needs to refresh?

Keep access to the device easy (just a password or local pin or biometric) and the sign in to your cloud resources via the PRT access tokens policed by your conditional access policy, managing the threats to your organisation’s most valued assets (your “Crown Jewels”).

  1. Enrol/provision a Mac using known credential – with MFA
  2. Login to a Mac with your local PIN/biometric (1:1) or known credential (shared) – no MFA
  3. Get access to your PRT for SSO and re-auth with conditions are not met – with MFA

I hope this posts helps you and your organisation move forward with cloud managed identity for the modern endpoint.

Further References
Categories
MacAdmin

MDM Managed Administrator Account

The tale of the macOS MDM Managed Local Administrator Account vs Jamf Management Account

Over the years as Jamf Pro and macOS have evolved, from pre-MDM framework, including the Casper Suite days, to the more recent evolutions of FileVault and SecureToken, Apple is investing more and more into “non-agent” frameworks to build on the Success of an MDM first approach in iOS.

Jamf Pro has been a fantastic tool for running policy and agent/binary based to fill in the gaps for where MDM framework initially didn’t existing, and then subsequent in its short comings.

The next low hanging fruit in both Apple and Jamf Pro’s evolution, around local macOS account management, is the macOS local administrator account.

Apple have recently clearly defined the future role of the “managed administrator account” that the MDM framework can remotely manage:

https://support.apple.com/en-au/guide/mdm/mdmca092ad96/web

Jamf Pro currently has a partial implementation of the “managed administrator account” as part of macOS PreStage Enrollment, however there currently is no ongoing “stateful” management of the account.

Jamf Pro does currently have a process of managing the password of Jamf Pro Management Account found in User-Initiated Enrolment using the Jamf Pro binary via policies.

A recent release of Jamf Pro better separated the MDM created PreStage enrolment account and the Jamf Management Account, however, the Jamf Management Account framework is largely one of Technical Debt in the Jamf Pro Framework.

2 Possible pathways forward:

  1. Migrate the Jamf Pro Management account out of policy/binary based management and assume the role of Apple’s “managed administrator account”. Some of the related Jamf Admin functions will need to be deprecated and some replaced by modern MDM features such as MDM enabled Apple Remote Desktop management
  2. Build out the MDM commands/framework for ongoing management of Apple’s MDM “managed administrator account” and mark the Jamf Management Account as deprecated. This would also involve replacing the Jamf Management account under UIE with the MDM “managed administrator account” for consistency across “Device Enrolment” and “Automated Device Enrolment” intended for corporately owned devices. User enrolment channel being developed by Apple will not have any management account in scope.

Which ever pathway is chosen, the messaging to Jamf Pro administrators in the community will be to move the primary corporate admin account account on corporately owned shared and one to one macOS devices to the MDM MDM “managed administrator account” and have a place on the Jamf Inventory Record to manage the password of the account as part of MDM commands and/or inventory data.

Similar to the concept of FileVault PRK and IRKs, I envision Jamf Administrators having the ability choose a common password across all devices, configured in one place, opted in as a default option on all macOS devices, with alternate options for individually specified and individually auto generated (ie LAPS concept) passwords on each computer inventory record. Auto generated, unique per machine, as found as an option with the Jamf Management account currently, should be a global option for the MDM “managed administrator account”.

The direction from Apple is clear and the technical debt of the Jamf Management account is confusing for many Jamf Administrators.

Here is a Feature Request I created before I turned it into a blog post (upvote away!):

https://www.jamf.com/jamf-nation/feature-requests/9590/macos-mdm-managed-local-administrator-account-vs-jamf-management-account

Here is a MacAdmins Community related discussion on the topic as well (non-Jamf specific):

https://twitter.com/wikiwalk/status/1275622118324162561

Categories
MacAdmin

VPP Redemption Codes & Apple School Manager

Another interesting discussion today on the MacAdmin’s slack revealed a workflow gap created for some schools when Apple deprecated Volume Purchasing (VPP) Redemption Codes.

Essentially, a really horrible process could be used to buy a bunch of licenses for an app, in the form of codes, and give them to end users to redeem.

It was superseded some time ago by Managed Distribution, championed by MDMs, to initially assign licenses to devices, “activated” against their Apple ID. This was later improved again by assigning directing to a device (no Apple ID required).

This evolution saw the decline of ye old redemption codes to the point that Apple chose to sunset it (for EDU only??) and focus on managed distribution. This has left a gap in workflow for some schools.

Some schools were using codes as a lightweight touch to tackle the ever popular adoption of bring your own device (BYOD), gifting apps to students to use on their personal devices (assume wrapping up in school fees). No need to enrol a BYO device into MDM.

With that option now gone, solidified by Apple forcing migration for the legacy volume purchasing portal to Apple School Manager in December 2019, schools are trying to figure out how to replace this workflow. Mass purchase of iTunes cards is being floated.

One option, which does involve MDM, is the new user enrolment MDM channel. I won’t go into detail here, but effectively iOS 13 and macOS 10.15 devices can enrol into your MDM using a managed Apple ID (from ASM) and get a quarantined slice of your device storage to install organisation content (if your MDM supports it). The MDM can’t even see your device serial number… making its new set of limitations a much more comfortable pill to swallow than “letting you install an app gives you access to erase my entire personal device” level of control.

The other option (which will be the most attractive to the redemption code loving crowd) is Apple Configurator 2.

This article points out a nice solution for “If you want to use managed distribution, but don’t have an MDM solution”:

https://support.apple.com/en-au/HT202995

Given you only need initial access to the device and then can revoke later as needed, this might be a nice solution.

To Add: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/apple-configurator-2/cadbf9c811/mac

To Revoke: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/apple-configurator-2/cadeaa4649f2/mac

Let’s see if this approach gets any traction with the BYOD wrangling EDU community.