macOS Defaults module for Puppet

This module defines a macdefaults type which can manage preferences on macOS/OS X.

It enable Puppet to manage any setting that is changed or set using defaults.

This removes the need to include a large number of redundant exec statements to accomplish the same thing, for example:

exec {'Set default paper size to A4':
  command   => 'usr/bin/defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.print.PrintingPrefs DefaultPaperID -string "iso-a4"',
  unless    => "/usr/bin/defaults read /Library/Preferences/com.apple.print.PrintingPrefs DefaultPaperID | grep iso-a4,
}

Usage

• Add this module to your Puppet modules directory via R10k (recommended) or downloading and unzipping.
• Make use of the code in any Puppet manifest or other module:

macdefaults { 'set-a4':
  domain => '/Library/Preferences/com.apple.print.PrintingPrefs',
  key    => 'DefaultPaperID',
  type   => 'string',
  value  => 'iso-a4'
}

Values

Possible values for type are:

• string
• data
• int
• float
• bool
• data
• array
• array-add
• dict
• dict-add

Notes

For values which can be managed via a configuration profile, it is reccomended to use the mac_profiles_handler

This module can be used for general property list key manipulation, just like defaults, but it is reccomended to use Gary Larizza's property_list_key provider instead.

I didn't write 90% of this, but I can't for the life of me remember where I found it. I'm putting it on here for posterity.

This has been updated to be used as macdefaults instead of mac-defaults to be compatible with Puppet 4.

To Do

• Move the working parts to Ruby to better support dictionaries and arrays, as well as to remove the dependency on grep.

macOS Version Compatibility

Tested and compatible with macOS 26 (Tahoe).