macOS Installation Guide

To install StrongDM with the installer version (PKG), follow these steps.

1. Double-click the downloaded PKG file (SDM-<VERSION_NUMBER>.universal.pkg). A dialog opens with guided prompts.
2. On the introduction screen, read the information given and click Continue.
3. Click Install.
4. After installation is complete, view the success message and click Close.

To install StrongDM as an admin, use the built-in command-line program called installer. Use sudo and enter the PKG file as an argument (using the correct PKG file name), as in the following example:

sudo installer -pkg SDM-21.58.0.universal.pkg -target /

As a last installation step, you need to set the SDM_APP_DOMAIN environment variable to tell your desktop app where to find your StrongDM service. This can be done automatically each time your computer is started via a shell script. Save the following script as a shell script and run it from a terminal to create the ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.strongdm.setenv.plist file and load it on startup.

#!/bin/bash
# Installs launch agent that sets SDM_APP_DOMAIN=app.uk.strongdm.com for the current user.
# After installation, launch SDM.app and you should see app.uk.strongdm.com in the output
# of "ps xeww | grep sdm.darwin | grep app.uk.strongdm.com"

# Define the plist file path
PLIST_FILE="$HOME/Library/LaunchAgents/com.strongdm.setenv.plist"

# Create the plist file with the required content
tee $PLIST_FILE <<EOF
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.strongdm.setenv</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/bin/bash</string>
        <string>-c</string>
        <string>launchctl setenv SDM_APP_DOMAIN app.uk.strongdm.com; killall -9 SDM sdm.darwin</string>
    </array>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>
</dict>
</plist>
EOF

# Set the correct ownership and permissions
chmod 644 $PLIST_FILE

# Load the plist file with launchctl
launchctl load $PLIST_FILE

echo "LaunchAgent installed and loaded successfully."

That’s it! You’ve installed StrongDM. Go ahead and try a connection!

To install StrongDM with the installer version (PKG), follow these steps.

1. Double-click the downloaded PKG file (SDM-<VERSION_NUMBER>.universal.pkg). A dialog opens with guided prompts.
2. On the introduction screen, read the information given and click Continue.
3. Click Install.
4. After installation is complete, view the success message and click Close.

To install StrongDM as an admin, use the built-in command-line program called installer. Use sudo and enter the PKG file as an argument (using the correct PKG file name), as in the following example:

sudo installer -pkg SDM-21.58.0.universal.pkg -target /

As a last installation step, you need to set the SDM_APP_DOMAIN environment variable to tell your desktop app where to find your StrongDM service. This can be done automatically each time your computer is started via a shell script. Save the following script as a shell script and run it from a terminal to create the ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.strongdm.setenv.plist file and load it on startup.

#!/bin/bash
# Installs launch agent that sets SDM_APP_DOMAIN=app.eu.strongdm.com for the current user.
# After installation, launch SDM.app and you should see app.eu.strongdm.com in the output
# of "ps xeww | grep sdm.darwin | grep app.eu.strongdm.com"

# Define the plist file path
PLIST_FILE="$HOME/Library/LaunchAgents/com.strongdm.setenv.plist"

# Create the plist file with the required content
tee $PLIST_FILE <<EOF
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.strongdm.setenv</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/bin/bash</string>
        <string>-c</string>
        <string>launchctl setenv SDM_APP_DOMAIN app.eu.strongdm.com; killall -9 SDM sdm.darwin</string>
    </array>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>
</dict>
</plist>
EOF

# Set the correct ownership and permissions
chmod 644 $PLIST_FILE

# Load the plist file with launchctl
launchctl load $PLIST_FILE

echo "LaunchAgent installed and loaded successfully."

That’s it! You’ve installed StrongDM. Go ahead and try a connection!

To install StrongDM with the DMG, follow these steps.

1. Double-click the downloaded DMG file (SDM-<VERSION_NUMBER>.dmg).

2. Drag the SDM app to the Applications folder using the provided shortcut. If you do not have admin rights on your computer, you can copy the SDM app to the Applications folder in your home directory or the desktop, where it runs and updates normally without requiring admin privileges.

   Do not run SDM directly from the DMG file. This results in degraded functionality.

   

As a last installation step, you need to set the SDM_APP_DOMAIN environment variable to tell your desktop app where to find your StrongDM service. This can be done automatically each time your computer is started via a shell script. Save the following script as a shell script and run it from a terminal to create the ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.strongdm.setenv.plist file and load it on startup.

#!/bin/bash
# Installs launch agent that sets SDM_APP_DOMAIN=app.uk.strongdm.com for the current user.
# After installation, launch SDM.app and you should see app.uk.strongdm.com in the output
# of "ps xeww | grep sdm.darwin | grep app.uk.strongdm.com"

# Define the plist file path
PLIST_FILE="$HOME/Library/LaunchAgents/com.strongdm.setenv.plist"

# Create the plist file with the required content
tee $PLIST_FILE <<EOF
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.strongdm.setenv</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/bin/bash</string>
        <string>-c</string>
        <string>launchctl setenv SDM_APP_DOMAIN app.uk.strongdm.com; killall -9 SDM sdm.darwin</string>
    </array>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>
</dict>
</plist>
EOF

# Set the correct ownership and permissions
chmod 644 $PLIST_FILE

# Load the plist file with launchctl
launchctl load $PLIST_FILE

echo "LaunchAgent installed and loaded successfully."

That’s it! You’ve installed StrongDM. Go ahead and try a connection!

To install StrongDM with the DMG, follow these steps.

1. Double-click the downloaded DMG file (SDM-<VERSION_NUMBER>.dmg).

2. Drag the SDM app to the Applications folder using the provided shortcut. If you do not have admin rights on your computer, you can copy the SDM app to the Applications folder in your home directory or the desktop, where it runs and updates normally without requiring admin privileges.

   Do not run SDM directly from the DMG file. This results in degraded functionality.

   

As a last installation step, you need to set the SDM_APP_DOMAIN environment variable to tell your desktop app where to find your StrongDM service. This can be done automatically each time your computer is started via a shell script. Save the following script as a shell script and run it from a terminal to create the ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.strongdm.setenv.plist file and load it on startup.

#!/bin/bash
# Installs launch agent that sets SDM_APP_DOMAIN=app.eu.strongdm.com for the current user.
# After installation, launch SDM.app and you should see app.eu.strongdm.com in the output
# of "ps xeww | grep sdm.darwin | grep app.eu.strongdm.com"

# Define the plist file path
PLIST_FILE="$HOME/Library/LaunchAgents/com.strongdm.setenv.plist"

# Create the plist file with the required content
tee $PLIST_FILE <<EOF
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.strongdm.setenv</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/bin/bash</string>
        <string>-c</string>
        <string>launchctl setenv SDM_APP_DOMAIN app.eu.strongdm.com; killall -9 SDM sdm.darwin</string>
    </array>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>
</dict>
</plist>
EOF

# Set the correct ownership and permissions
chmod 644 $PLIST_FILE

# Load the plist file with launchctl
launchctl load $PLIST_FILE

echo "LaunchAgent installed and loaded successfully."

That’s it! You’ve installed StrongDM. Go ahead and try a connection!

To set up the CLI that is included with the desktop app, you can use the following steps.

1. After installing the SDM application, click the sdm icon in the menu bar. Make sure you are logged in by checking that the SDM application is online and your available resources display.

2. Open the Actions menu and select Install sdm in PATH.

   You can also open a terminal and type sudo ln -s /Applications/SDM.app/Contents/Resources/sdm.darwin /usr/local/bin/sdm. Either of these options adds the sdm command line application to your PATH.

3. Set the SDM_APP_DOMAIN environment variable to tell your CLI where to find your StrongDM service. Edit your ~/.zshrc file and add export SDM_APP_DOMAIN=app.uk.strongdm.com at the end, then source the file with source ~/.zshrc. This sets the environment variable for this session.

4. Verify that the CLI is working properly by running sdm --version, which should return a version number similar to the following

$ sdm --version
sdm version 35.3.0 (99a5d1a71d4eccaf171449e33bc0826132b05165 #503)

If instead you see something like -bash: sdm: command not found, it may mean that the path /usr/local/bin/ is not included in your system search path. Edit the shell configuration file your system is using. For macOS, that is sometimes .bash_profile, but since macOS Catalina, zsh is the default shell. Open the shell configuration file and append export PATH=/usr/local/bin/:$PATH to it. Then run:

$ source ~/.zshrc
$ sdm --version
sdm version 35.3.0 (99a5d1a71d4eccaf171449e33bc0826132b05165 #503)

You may also download the package directly. In this example, we will use the curl method to get the AMD64 binary (for an x86-64 architecture) and complete the download. Open a terminal and download the Linux binary:

curl -J -O -L https://app.uk.strongdm.com/releases/cli/linux

For an ARM-based architecture, you must use the Release endpoint with parameters to download an ARM64 binary:

curl -s 'https://app.uk.strongdm.com/release?software=sdm-cli&os=linux&arch=arm64'

To set up the CLI that is included with the desktop app, you can use the following steps.

1. After installing the SDM application, click the sdm icon in the menu bar. Make sure you are logged in by checking that the SDM application is online and your available resources display.

2. Open the Actions menu and select Install sdm in PATH.

   You can also open a terminal and type sudo ln -s /Applications/SDM.app/Contents/Resources/sdm.darwin /usr/local/bin/sdm. Either of these options adds the sdm command line application to your PATH.

3. Set the SDM_APP_DOMAIN environment variable to tell your CLI where to find your StrongDM service. Edit your ~/.zshrc file and add export SDM_APP_DOMAIN=app.eu.strongdm.com at the end, then source the file with source ~/.zshrc. This sets the environment variable for this session.

4. Verify that the CLI is working properly by running sdm --version, which should return a version number similar to the following

$ sdm --version
sdm version 35.3.0 (99a5d1a71d4eccaf171449e33bc0826132b05165 #503)

If instead you see something like -bash: sdm: command not found, it may mean that the path /usr/local/bin/ is not included in your system search path. Edit the shell configuration file your system is using. For macOS, that is sometimes .bash_profile, but since macOS Catalina, zsh is the default shell. Open the shell configuration file and append export PATH=/usr/local/bin/:$PATH to it. Then run:

$ source ~/.zshrc
$ sdm --version
sdm version 35.3.0 (99a5d1a71d4eccaf171449e33bc0826132b05165 #503)

You may also download the package directly. In this example, we will use the curl method to get the AMD64 binary (for an x86-64 architecture) and complete the download. Open a terminal and download the Linux binary:

curl -J -O -L https://app.eu.strongdm.com/releases/cli/linux

For an ARM-based architecture, you must use the Release endpoint with parameters to download an ARM64 binary:

curl -s 'https://app.eu.strongdm.com/release?software=sdm-cli&os=linux&arch=arm64'