Resources from Mac Admins Foundation sessions at the 2023 MacAdmins Conference

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It was wonderful to see everyone at this year’s MacAdmins Conference at Penn State University. Our sincerest thank you to the conference organizers for including the Mac Admins Foundation as a sponsor and inviting us to present.

Attending members of the Board of Directors participated in two panels this year. One was an update from the Mac Admins Foundation and its first year. The second was a panel conversation with the board of the Mac Admins Open Source project. Slides from both sessions are available online now at the links below.

The Mac Admins Foundation – Rich Trouton; Chris Dawe; Jennifer Unger; Tom Bridge; Dr. Emily Kausalik (Slides | Video)

Mac Admins Open Source Panel – Rich Trouton; Nate Walck; Greg Neagle; Elliot Jordan; Dr. Emily Kausalik (+ guest Chris Dawe) (Slides | Video)

This page will be updated with links to the recordings of each session as they are made available by the conference organizers.

As a reminder, we had a giveaway for custom camp flags at the Mac Admins Foundation table this year at the MacAdmins Conference. (To review our drawing winners, please see this post on the Mac Admins Slack.) If your name was selected in the drawing but you didn’t pick up your flag at the MAF table in the vendor hall please Contact Us so we can get that to you.

Mac SysAdmin & Developer Conference ticket giveaway

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The Mac Admins Foundation is excited to announce a giveaway of two (2) tickets to the 2023 Mac SysAdmin & Developer Conference. This year’s conference will be in Brighton, UK with an expo on May 22nd followed by the conference on the 23rd and 24th.

This giveaway is only open to individuals located in the UK.

Two (2) names will be selected from submissions received by 5pm PST Tuesday April 18th using a random number generator. Winners will be contacted on or about Friday April 21st.

We kindly request that you consider your personal availability to attend the conference before entering the giveaway. The ticket is for entrance to the conference only. There are no funds or grants of any kind included in this giveaway.  This includes, but is not limited to, transportation, lodging, and food. 

Please refer to the Mac SysAdmin & Developer Conference website for additional details on ticket benefits and inclusions.

To enter your name in our random drawing, please submit your information here. Only one response per person will be accepted.

You can contact the Mac Admins Foundation at giveaways@macadmins.org with any questions.

Announcing Mac Admins Open Source (MAOS)

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The Mac Admins community has long produced open source tools of incredible value to its members, but there hasn’t been a way to provide strong code signing resources to use when signing and notarizing binaries and installer packages for those tools. Starting today, Mac Admins Open Source is launching with the support of the Mac Admins Foundation. Mac Admins can apply for and receive secure codesigning support free of charge.

Why do Mac Admins need codesigning and notarization? Why is it important?

Codesigning and notarization ensures that an application or script hasn’t been modified since it was signed. Codesigning and notarization are also required to pass through Apple’s Gatekeeper security system at launch and at run time. Signed code helps mitigate bad actors attempting to pass off malicious code as something it’s not, under the guise of an existing tool. Notarization ensures that Apple has passed the signed code through an automated scanning process and verified that the signed code is free of malicious content. For more information about Gatekeeper and Apple’s codesigning process, please review Apple’s documentation.

How does having this functionality help Mac Admins?

As macOS has matured and grown over the years, codesigning has become a core pillar of the security model. As a result of these changes, having signed code allows a Mac Admin to grant privileges to applications and processes which cannot be granted to unsigned code, such as full disk access, managed Login Items, and more.

How will Mac Admins gain access to these signing identities?

The Mac Admin Open Source organization will work with open-source project owners who want to sign their code. All projects will go through a standard vetting process to ensure that the repository is configured in a secure fashion, good coding practices are applied, and there is a plan to maintain the project going forward. After all the criteria are met, a secure signing process will be integrated with the project’s Git repository on the Mac Admins Github.

How is the Mac Admins Foundation involved?

The Mac Admins Foundation sponsored and supported the founding of the Mac Admins Open Source organization, a non-profit registered with the state of Pennsylvania in the US. As a result, the Mac Admins Open Source organization has acquired an Apple Developer account for code signing, among other helpful services, to be administered through the Mac Admins GitHub organization. For more information, please visit #macadmins-opensource on the Mac Admins slack or macadmins.io.

Mac Admins Open Source and the Mac Admins Foundation wish to convey their deepest thanks to the following individuals who lent a hand during this process: Christos Drosos, Ashley Carroll, Tom Adcox, and Jeremy Butcher. 


Announcing the Inaugural Class of the Mac Admins Foundation Scholarship Program

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The Mac Admin Foundation’s first scholarship program provides members of the Mac Admins community the opportunity to test and certify for the Apple Certified Support Professional and Apple Certified IT Professional certifications.

The board is pleased to announce that the Mac Admins Foundation has issued 390 exam codes to 195 scholarship recipients in January. 

We wish recipients the best of luck on their exams, and look forward to celebrating their success in the coming months.

What's next?

The board intends to continue this program as part of broader scholarship offerings. Our focus in 2023 is shifting to support conference attendance and sponsorship. We will have more details on the continuation of this initiative later this year.

Want to get involved? 

Keep up with the Mac Admins Foundation via our website or #macadminsfoundation in Slack. Questions specific to this scholarship can also be sent to scholarships@macadmins.org. 

Your feedback is a major part of creating programs that benefit our community. We look forward to hearing from you!