Have you noticed anything new that is fixed or broken in the new update? Let me know!
Active Directory Domain Admin Access Removed!
This issue was first reported in the MacAdmins Slack a few hours after the 10.15.3 update was release.
I just installed the 10.15.3 update and now I can’t admin elevate using an AD domain account. This was working this morning pre-update and nothing has changed on the AD domain.
The domain account is in a security group that is set in Directory Utility > Active Directory as allowing administration. I can authenticate with the account successfully in Terminal using su, it’s just the admin rights that are broken.
MacAdmin User aaron
A few other users started to report the same issue after Aaron did.
Let’s Examine the issue.
The issue will most likely be reported by a user who says this…
I updated to 10.15.3 and when I use sudo I get this error.
User is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
Reported to who? Am I in trouble now???
User
Let’s check to see if Active Directory Group “Domain Admins” has admin access on your Mac.
/usr/sbin/dsconfigad -show
This command will give you a list of all your Active Directory Settings.
The screenshot below is what you will see AFTER the 10.15.3 Update.
This is what you SHOULD see.
Quick and easy command to show just the Allowed admin groups value.
HT goes out to Eric Holtam(@eholtam) for the command!
You could still have the issue even if “Allowed admin groups” shows domain admins.
In one of my tests to confirm this issue after the 10.15.3 update finished, I still had the domain admins group but my admin access did not work.
Do you use a custom Active Directory Admin Global Group ?
What if you use a custom AD group like “Pretendo_Admins” ?
You can have the same issue.
I did not have this issue after updating
Did you use a profile to bind? This is one example that I was unable to test.
Was the Mac connected to your directory for a few hours -1 day ? See Fix #3 below, it’s possible that the AD connector refreshed your information.
How can I fix this Problem?
The issue can be fixed in 3 ways.
Re-Bind to Active Directory
Run dsconfigad to set the group access again
WAIT – It was reported that the issue is fixed automatically after the Mac is left online for a certain amount of time. The configuration is refreshed. – Thanks to MacAdmins user awickert for testing this out.
To reset the domain group setting run this command.
dsconfigad -groups "DOMAIN\domain admins"
NOTE: If you use a custom AD Global group for admin adccess you need to replace domain admins with your custom group.
dsconfigad -groups "DOMAIN\Pretendo_Admins"
You can now run dsconfgad -show then check the Allowed admin groups and it should say = domain admins or your custom group.
You can also run this command to double verify the user now has admin access. (Thank you to a well known MacAdmins wizard for this command)
The AD “Update Keychain Bug” was fixed in 10.15.0, only to be Broken again in 10.15.1.
UPDATE: 03/26/20 – The bug is fixed after installing the Catalina 10.15.4 Combo Update!
UPDATE: 02/03/20 – This bug is still not fixed in 10.15.3! Please contact Apple about this if you haven’t already.
When the issue was first reported to me, I really didn’t believe the bug could be back right after it was fixed. You have to understand my frustration here, I first reported this bug back in 10.14.4!!!
I was disappointed that Apple didn’t fix this bug before the final release of Mojave. Near the end of Mojave, Apple did confirm the issue was fixed in a Beta Build of 10.15.
For Mojave users the fix for the issue would be
Upgrade to macOS Catalina
The bug is back.
During the 10.15 Beta period, I confirmed the bug was fixed in and figured that would be the end of it.
Yesterday, I confirmed the bug is back in 10.15.1.
The Bug is Exactly the same as the 10.14.4 bug.
The 10.15.1 Update Keychain Password bug is the same exact problem as the 10.14.4 issue.
If you change your Active Directory Password off the Mac, you will see the Update Keychain Password Dialog. If you click the 2nd button to UPDATE your login keychain password, the dialog box disappears and a new keychain is created for you. The old Login Keychain is still there but is renamed!
This is what you SHOULD see happen. Once you click the Update Keychain Password button a password box shows up. From here you need to type in your OLD keychain password. Once you do this, your Login Keychain Password is synced up and you are good to go.
Workaround
The good news is, you can remove the “New” keychain and rename your previous login keychain so you can access it again. You can follow the same instructions listed in my 10.14.4 article.
I will submit an Enterprise Support ticket tomorrow morning. If you use Mobile Accounts, I would ask that you do the same to build an impact statement. Please reach out to your SE or if you are a regular user support.apple.com/
Credits
I’d like to give special thanks toMr. Macintosh reader Cesar who first reported this issue.
Today Apple released macOS Mojave 10.14.6 (18G48f) Beta 2 to Developers and Public Beta Testers.
macOS Mojave 10.14.6 (18G48f) Beta 2 was released today June 11th, 2019 at 12:00 CST. As a MacAdmin it’s important that you take time to test Apple’s Beta Releases. Beta 2 patch notes do not list any fixes this time around.
Final call for last minute fixes in Mojave!
If you look at previous releases(10.11,12 & 13) the 10.14.6 update will most likely be the last update Mojave receives before 10.15 hits. Be sure to get all your last minute bug fixes into Apple ASAP. Now that 10.15 Beta 1 is out most engineers have moved to the new OS.
10.14.6 (18G48f) Beta 2 Release Notes
Overview
The macOS 10.14.4 SDK provides support for developing apps for Macs running macOS Mojave 10.14.6. The SDK comes bundled with Xcode 10.2.1 available from the Mac App Store. For information on the compatibility requirements for Xcode 10.2.1, see Xcode 10.2.1 Release Notes.
General
There are no SDK release notes for this software update.
macOS Mojave 10.14.6 (18G48f) Beta 2
IMPORTANT NOTE:
Don’t forget that the AD Mobile Account option to “Update Keychain Password” when resting your password outside the Mac is still broken in 10.14.5. This issue is still not fixed in 10.14.6 Beta! Be sure to contact Apple if you haven’t already done so!
Today Apple released macOS Mojave 10.14.6 (18G29g) Beta 1 to Developers and Public Beta Testers.
10.14.6 (18G29g) Beta 1 was released today at 12:00 CST. As a MacAdmin it’s important that you take time to test Apple’s Beta Releases. 10.14.6 Beta 1 came up pretty fast this time around due to the new Intel Microarchitectural Data Sampling (MDS) vulnerabilities. Apple released 10.14.5 and 2019-003 a day before the news broke. I posted an article about this vulnerability yesterday.
Final call for last minute fixes in Mojave!
If you look at previous releases(10.11,12&13) the 10.14.6 update will most likely be the last update Mojave receives before 10.15 hits. Be sure to get all your last minute bug fixes into Apple ASAP. MacOS 10.15 will be announced at WWDC (I WILL BE THERE!) on June 3rd, 2019.
10.14.6 (18G29g) Beta 1 Release Notes
Overview
The macOS 10.14.4 SDK provides support for developing apps for Macs running macOS Mojave 10.14.6. The SDK comes bundled with Xcode 10.2.1 available from the Mac App Store. For information on the compatibility requirements for Xcode 10.2.1, see Xcode 10.2.1 Release Notes.
General
There are no SDK release notes for this software update.
Note:
Don’t forget that the AD Mobile Account option to “Update Keychain Password” when resting your password outside the Mac is still broken in 10.14.5.
If you are here for the 10.15.1 issue, you can follow the same 10.14.4 workaround instructions below.
UPDATE: 07/31/19
This will probably be the final update. Sadly the issue is NOT fixed in 10.146. Even worse, this will be the final update and the issue will not be fixed in Mojave. I submitted this issue right after it was found in 10.14.4 and it’s just a bummer that this will never be fixed in Mojave. The only good news I can give you is that this is fixed in macOS Catalina 10.15.
UPDATE: 07/09/19
The AD Mobile Account option to “Update Keychain Password” when resting your password outside the Mac is still broken in macOS Mojave 10.14.5. This issue is still not fixed in current 10.14.6 Beta! Be sure to contact Apple if you haven’t already done so!
10.14.4 Update password fixes/problems
I really like the 10.14.4 update, trust me I do! It arrived with so many fixes that have really helped MacAdmins. The problem is, it also broke a few things. Just when I thought we found all the fixes/problems a new one pops up. If you have been following along, this is now my 4th article on password fixes/problems in the 10.14.4 update. Lets quickly review
10.14.4 Update breaks “Update Keychain Password” process for Ad Mobile Accounts.
This issue affects Active Directory Mobile Account users. If you use Mobile Accounts you have seen this message before.
You will only see this message if you change your Active Directory Password outside the Mac. An example of this would be if you changed your AD password on a 2nd Mac, Windows PC or Web Portal. Logging in with the new password will sync that new password down to the Macs local cache but can NOT change the keychain password without the OLD password. You can click “Create New Keychain” and brand new login keychain will be created. But what if you have Xcode Developer Certs and Private keys or Wifi certs? In this case you need your old keychain intact.
Clicking “Update Keychain Password” just creates a new login keychain.
If you click “Update Keychain Password” you should see this. (10.14.0-10.14.3)
Instead, after clicking the update button you will not see this message and you are now at the desktop. If you open up keychain access you will see that your login keychain was wiped out.
Workaround – Find renamed keychain, change password and restore.
Good news, I have a workaround for you. The old login Kkeychain luckily still remains in ~/Library/Keychains
We will have to perform a few steps to restore your old login keychain
1. Find renamed keychain – located in ~/Library/Keychains and called login_renamed_1.keychain-db
2. Change password of login_renamed_1.keychain-db from old to new
3. Remove login.keychain-db
4. Rename login_renamed_1.keychain-db to login.keychain-db
5. Restore login.keychain-db to Keychain Access.app
6. Log out and back in.
1. Find renamed keychain
The old keychain is located in ~/Library/Keychains and called login_renamed_1.keychain-db
2. Change login_renamed_1.keychain-db password
You used to be able to change the login keychain password through Keychain Access. This is no longer possible.
What if we clicked “Add Keychain” and tried to add the renamed keychain then try to change the password?
This looks promising but after clicking “change password for keychain login_renamed” nothing happens. I then tried to unlock it with the old password.
After unlocking I attempted to change the password again.
Still no go! After clicking change password nothing happened. At this point, I thought I was out of luck.
Enter CLI command security
Never give up a fight without visiting the Command Line Interface! The CLI can be your best friend. Let’s take a look at the security man page and see if anything will help us. Open terminal and type in man security
set-keychain-password Set password for a keychain.
Oh ya, now we are talking! Let’s take a look at the options.
Perfect, just what we are looking for. Lets try it out.
You will be prompted for your old and new password. Now that the old keychain has the same password as your AD account we can move it back into Keychain Access.app.
3. Remove login.keychain-db
Now we can just delete the empty login keychain.
Right click on login and select Delete Keychain “Login” then click “Delete References & Files”. You should now only have Local Items, System and System Roots.
4. Rename login_renamed_1.keychain-db to login.keychain-db
We now need to rename login_renamed_1.keychain-db to login.keychain-db. You can either do this in keychain access or in the finder. Let’s rename in the finder. Click once on login_renamed_1.keychain-db and change it to login.keychain-db.
5. Restore login.keychain-db to Keychain Access.app
Now all we need to do is add our old keychain back to Keychain Access.app. Right click in the keychain section and select “Add Keychain”.
Navigate to ~/Library/Keychains/login.keychain-db and select it. You will now see login in the keychain box! At this time it will be locked. You can test unlocking it now. Right click on login and select “Unlock Keychain login”
You will now be prompted to enter in your current password.
6. Log out and back in to confirm
You have now restored your old keychain. Log out and then back in to confirm. You are now good to go!
As always, we need to submit a bug report to Apple.
I can not stress how important this is. The more reports we put in the higher priority the issue gets. We are also running out time and only have about 3 weeks before 10.14.5 is released.
Thanks to hawkzhang45 from JAMF Nation forum for calling this issue out. Also to m.entholzner for conformation and submitting an Apple Enterprise Ticket. You can read the original thread here.
If you use Active Directory Mobile Accounts with FileVault, password sync problems will be very familiar to you. I have good news, MacOS Mojave 10.14.4-10.14.6 can now sync AD Mobile Account password changes to FileVault when you don’t know the AD password. Apple added this new feature to macOS 10.14.4 for Mobile Accounts. In previous releases, you needed the old password to sync the password down to FileVault. Local Accounts has had this ability for years. Rich Trouton put together a great article on Resetting and Syncing FV2 Local account passwords. He mentions the methods are only for Local Accounts, NOT Mobile Accounts.
You forgot your AD password on 10.13.0-10.14.3
Users who fall into this situation are in a pinch and options to get the system to sync the new password to FileVault are limited. You could boot the system up using the PRK (Personal Recovery Key) and then have the Help Desk reset the AD password. This would get you into the system but your FV2 password would never sync. You will be forced to continue to unlock the Mac with the PRK (Personal Recovery Key), then login with the new AD password.
The only way to fix this was to have a SecureToken Admin on the system.
Do you have an admin support account that is FileVault/SecureToken enabled? Listed below are two methods to fix out of sync passwords.
1. fdesetup remove / re-add user
sudo fdesetup remove user userwhoforgotpass.
Then re-add the user by running
sudo fdesetup add user localadminuser -usertoadd userwhoforgotpass
What this would do is remove the user from the enabled FileVault user list, then add them back. The sync would happen when you are prompted for the new password when re-enabling the account for FileVault unlock.
2. Sysadminctl -secureTokenOff/On
You can also use sysadminctl. Start by turning off SecureToken and then turn it back on.
The process of turning off SecureToken and then turning it back on will sync the password. Also note that you don’t have to run sysadminctl with sudo.
Problem is, some companies don’t want a FileVault enabled admin account on the system.
NOTE: diskutil apfs updatePreboot / – Does NOT sync the password!
Running diskutil apfs updatePreboot / does NOT sync the password from the OS to FileVault. If this worked in the past, it was only a coincidence. If you changed your AD password outside the Mac, password syncing to FileVault would sometimes take 2-3 restarts. This command is only really needed when you wanted to add a new FileVault user to the system. Running this command would then add the new user to the FileVault pre-boot window. You only had to run this command in 10.13. This was actually a bug and was fixed in 10.14. The new account will now automatically show up at the FV2 pre-boot window after creation.
Reading the third line, it does seem to match our situation. If you forgot your AD password, you would have to continually unlock the Mac with the PRK. You would be forced to do this each time you turned on your Mac or restarted. Notice the wording, it does not say “Fixes”.
How to reset your AD mobile account password and have it sync to FileVault, when you don’t know the previous password.
You need to meet all of the following pre requisites.
macOS Mojave 10.14.4 or newer.
Active connection to Active Directory.
Access to the PRK (Personal Recovery Key)
You have the ability to change your password outside the Mac (2nd Mac, Windows PC, or Web Portal). Or the Help Desk can reset and issue you a temporary password which you can then use to set a new password at the loginwindow.
Since you don’t know the previous password you can’t even get past the FileVault Unlock Screen. You will need access to the PRK. Click the user who needs their password reset. In the password line, you will now see a ? button. Click on it, you can now type in the Personal Recovery Key. Try this neat trick to get the Macs serial number. Click the ? a second time.
After booting the system with the Personal Recovery Key the process will stop at the login window. On 10.13.0-10.14.3 systems you are prompted to reset the password at the login window.
This feature is for Local Accounts Only. To change your AD Mobile Account password from the Mac you must give Active Directory the OLD password. You can only do this with System Preferences > Users & Groups > “Change Password” or dscl. As you can see above the interface does not have a box for Old Password.
10.14.4 will now show a new pop up for Mobile Accounts after booting with the PRK.
The Mac now realizes that you are trying to reset a Mobile Account Password. You will no longer see the Reset Password pop up. This is because AD requires that you enter in the OLD password. Since you don’t know it, you will not be able to reset your password. This is why macOS will not show you the password reset window anymore for mobile accounts. If you use the PRK from a Local Account you will get password reset window with password fields like you would normally expect.
Step 2. Reset the AD Password.
As noted above you for this to work you can reset your AD password one of two ways.
Call the Help Desk and have them reset the password and then issue you a temporary password.
Reset the password on a 2nd Mac, Windows PC, Web Portal etc.
Either way will work for the password change system to work.
If you called the Help Desk and had them reset your AD Password they can now give you a temporary password. Your account will be flagged “Password must be changed on next login“. Enter in your username and then type in the temporary password. Hit enter and you will now get a new pop up window.
Enter in your new password. Click Reset Password when ready. You will be greeted with the login keychain message. You will receive this message anytime you change the password outside the Mac. Click “Create New Keychain” and the Mac will continue to login.
Step 3. Restart to complete the FileVault sync.
You will need to restart at least one more time to complete the sync process.
On this next restart you will need to enter in the PRK ONE MORE TIME.
NOTE: I am still trying to figure out if having to use the PRK twice is a bug or not. I think it is because you don’t have to do this extra step with local accounts.
After you perform one last PRK boot, enter in the username and new password and you will be at the desktop once again. The process is now complete, you can restart to confirm. Use your new AD password to unlock the volume and the system will now auto boot you to the desktop.
Conclusion
This is my 3rd article on password fixes/improvements/problems in 10.14.4
MacAdmins who use Active Directory Mobile Accounts want a working password change system that functions seamlessly with FileVault. Now that we have a working native AD Plugin, will this stop the mass exodus to Local Accounts? Only time will tell.
Before we get started I’m am going to talk a little bit about how macOS and Active Directory work together. I will also go into some history behind the built-in AD Connector. In the end, I will explain the current problems we are having with Active Directory Mobile Account password syncing and how Apple fixed the issue.
If your company or school uses Active Directory, you most likely use Mobile Accounts. To get Mobile Accounts to work you first have to bind the Mac to Active Directory, once bound the Mac is now trusted. You can now log in with any Active Directory user and access to Global Groups, Kerberos and Directory Contacts.
Sounds great right? It was!
Once you log in, the system caches your AD account to the local directory. If you then disconnect the Mac from the network you can still log and continue to work. When the time comes to change your AD password you could change it on a 2nd Mac, a Windows device or even a Web Portal.
How did the AD password change work?
If you changed your password on the Mac it would first check if any password requirements are set at the domain level. If you passed the requirements the password would be immediately changed in Active Directory. The password would then change at the local offline level of your Mac. If you changed your password outside the Mac (Web Portal etc..) the system would receive the password change the next time you connected the Mac to the network and logged in. You would then be promoted to Update or create a new Login Keychain.
Active Directory & FileVault 2
The AD password change system changed in 10.7 with the addition of FileVault 2. Now when you changed your password an extra step had to be performed. Once the password was changed in AD it would then change the locally cached password and then had to sync that password down to your FV2 account. When you turned on your Mac, you could then use the same password as your AD account to unlock the volume and start booting the system. The AD password sync system worked pretty well from 10.7 all the way up to 10.12 Sierra. Users would sometimes have issues here and there when the Mac dropped off the domain but usually a rebind and would save the day.
10.13, APFS and SecureToken
Apple introduced the next-generation file system called APFS (Apple File System). We first got to test it out in 10.12 Sierra in beta form. APFS was standard for all SSD drive installations on 10.13 High Sierra installs. You could still opt out with commands and spinning hard drives would still use HFS. When 10.14 arrived APFS was standard across all hard drives. The introduction of APFS brought an added undocumented security feature called SecureToken. If you wanted to enable FileVault 2 you had to have SecureToken enabled for said account. You could no longer you use the PRK (Personal Recovery Key) or even a local admin to add extra users to unlock the volume like you could with HFS. You have to grant the 2nd user a SecureToken before they could become an authorized CryptoUser. To get the token in the first place you had to be the first user logging into macOS at the SetupAssistant.
10.13 was the start of syncing issues for Mobile Accounts.
The main problem with this new system was that the SecureToken system was not tested. Mobile account users, in particular, had nothing but problems with this new system. From 10.13.0-10.13.3 AD Mobile Account password syncing to FV2 flat out did not work. During this time frame we had multiple high priority tickets in with Apple Enterprise Support. When 10.13.4 hit Apple finally fixed the issue and password syncing started to somewhat work again. I say somewhat because everyone still reported issues but at least it worked SOME of the time now. 10.13 still had problems when you changed the password off the Mac.
Enough of the history lesson, get to the 10.14 problem!
Once 10.14 hit we were hoping that the problems we had on 10.13 Mobile Accounts would fixed. Unfortunately, we were wrong, way wrong. The problem worse when 10.14.0 released. How could it be worse than 10.13 and how did miss the problem in 10.14 beta? On 10.13 as I mentioned above we had to deal with of Mobile Account syncing of FV2 passwords. The user would change the password outside the system and it would not make it down to FV2. The good thing is we actually have fix for this!
The following instructions will change or Sync the password for the CryptoUser account that belongs to the AD user. This will only work if the user KNOWS the old password since the command will prompt for the current password.
1. diskutil apfs list (Grab the disk label for Volume Macintosh HD usually disk1s1)
2. sudo fdesetup list -extended (grab the UUID of the OS USER) You can also use diskutil apfs listCryptoUsers /
3. diskutil apfs changePassphrase disk1s1 -user UUIDhere (add in the UUID of the OS USER from the pevious command and put it in UUIDHere.
That’s cool, but you still haven’t told us why is the situation worse in 10.14?
The local cached offline password is never changed!
The problem is the issue is undetectable UNTIL the user attempts to authenticate OFF the network. When they try the current password it will NOT work. They will then have to call the helpdesk, who then changes the AD password making the situation even worse. This is the situation for 10.14.3 and below.
When connected to the network = Current AD Password works!
When Disconnected from the network = ONLY previous password works.
FV2 password = Previous Password.
Things get even more annoying is if the user actually uses the old password to authentiate the Screen Saver while offline. The system will accept the password but then immediately prompt the user to unlock the Login Keychain. This is due to the keychain being set to the current AD password. You would be in a never-ending keychain password cycle.
Do you have a fix for the offline sync issue?
The good news is we do, as long as you have a SecureToken enabled Admin user. All you need to do is turn off SecureToken and then turn it back on. Something in this system will then sync the offline cached password. Shout out to @annemacro on MacAdmins Slack for figuring this out!
Now that 10.14.4 is out the password sync mechanism now working. As long as you update systems to 10.14.4 before users change their AD password they will not have this issue going forward. I have not had the chance to actually test the 10.14.4 update on a system that is already out of sync. The good news is that even if it doesn’t fix the issue when it is already happening you now have the tools to fix it yourself. The next time the user changes their password they will not experience the issue.
Why did this take so long to fix?
The answer to this question is pretty simple. Everyone missed the bug from beta 1 all the way through into 10.14.0. I performed hours and hours of testing in beta. I was so concerned about that the FV2 password did not sync that I did not even think to test the offline password. Even worse, neither did anyone else including Apple. It was not until around 10.14.2 when I had an enterprise ticket in with Apple and finally got a response.
“This bug will not be fixed until the next release of macOS”
When I read the reply to this support ticket I was in complete shock. Are you going to tell me that we are going to flat out have a NON FUNCTIONING MOBILE ACCOUNT SYSTEM FOR THE ENTIRE 10.14 RELEASE? I could not believe it. The Apple Enterprise Support Engineer I was working with also agreed and he was fantastic to work with and helped work through the issue with me. At this point what else would a #MacAdmin do but RANT in MacAdmins Slack!!! The best way to do this is to document and explain the issue to others. You can then rally other MacAdmins to file Enterprise tickets or Radars. This will draw attention to the issue and generate heat inside Apple Enterprise Support. In the end that’s exactly what happened. We were not the only company that Used Mobile accounts. Those same companies let Apple know that we needed a fix ASAP. Apple realized this was important and fixed this issue for us in 10.14.4. (Thank you Apple!)
Where does that leave Mobile Accounts?
Before 10.13 Mobile Accounts worked very well. We had thousands of Macs connected to AD utilizing Mobile accounts and did not have any issues. Once 10.13 hit things started to go downhill. The problem is, it seems like Apple is not spending enough time on Mobile Accounts. The MacAdmins community has started to realize this and starting at the end of 2017 and into 2018. This began what I call “The great Mobile Account exodus to Local Accounts”. NoMAD and Enterprise Connect make using local accounts while still having the ability to use AD resources easy. Mobile Accounts still serves it’s purpose but it seems the writing is on the wall.
Thanks
If you stuck around to read the entire article I really do appreciate it. If you are at WWDC 2019 or JNUC 2019 I will buy you a beer or non-alcoholic beverage. Just mention coupon code #ISURVIVEDMOBILEACCOUNS.
I hope to write many more articles like this in the future. Over the past 15 years MacAdmins have helped me get to where I am today. I hope I can give back to the community and help the next generation of MacAdmins rise through the ranks! Drop me a note at com gmail mrmacintoshblog