I may have asked you this before, but do you have OS X Server providing any sort of client management? Most of this can be done, but handling it via the clients respecting policy dictated by OS X Server will prevent you from chasing down already deployed machines and re-baking your image each time someone dictates a new change they want to see.

However, if you are going to bake your settings into the image, you’ll want to use a payload-free package in your CustomPKG folder. What it is is a package that doesn’t actually install anything (anything useful, at least, you might need to install a dummy file into /private/tmp so the installer doesn’t hork when trying to install) and runs your desired script as a postflight script.

However, some of those settings you’ve listed live in the user’s account. Without policy, you’re going to be scripting something like the following so the settings are written into the User Template and will affect all new user accounts:

[code]/usr/bin/defaults write /System/Library/User\ Template/English.lproj/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari IncludeDebugMenu 1[/code]

If you’re digging for what settings and what files are modified by each of your settings of interest, you can grab your favorite change-tracking tool (LogGen, fseventer, etc) and use it to figure out what file is getting manipulated. Then compare the before and after of the file while toggling the setting and figure out what defaults command you need to write. I can dig the settings up if you want me to, but it is [i]really[/i] a good exercise to learn how to find them. You’ll eventually hit some setting that isn’t documented or widely used (Office 2008 WYSIWYG menus, I’m looking at [b][i]you[/i][/b]) and then you’ll have the experience and toolkit to find them.

– Patrick

With Leopard, I’m of the opinion that there is no excuse now to NOT use Apple’s client management tools, AKA MCX, or policy, or whatever. Even if you don’t have a directory server, you can use the local DS to store policy settings.

There may be configuration changes that still require running systemsetup or networksetup, or other tools, but just about anything that you’re currently using the defaults tool to manage can be managed with MCX records.

This is a huge win for Mac OS X admins, as now ALL admins can take advantage of MCX, no matter what your infrastructure is.

For some ideas on how to use MCX in the local DS, see

https://www.afp548.com/article.php?story=using-mcx-in-the-dslocal-domain
and
http://managingosx.wordpress.com/2008/02/07/mcx-dslocal-and-leopard/

Since these settings are now stored as plist files in /private/var/dslocal/nodes/Default, you can capture them into a package (or packages) and make them part of an InstaDMG workflow.

[quote]International: enable character palette and show input menu in menu bar[/quote]

Hi Knowmad,

which item should I add in WM to gain access to the international settings? I tried adding /S/L/CS/ManagedClient but no luck with that one…

tried also with “/S/L/CS/Language Chooser” but WM is not allowing me to add it

Eric

[b]Input Menu (a.k.a. the International Menu Extra):[/b]

Start Workgroup Manager, go to the Preferences section, and click on the “Details” tab. Click the plus button. Navigate to:

/System/Library/CoreServices/ManagedClient

and click “Add”. You now should have a bunch of managed preferences, including one named “Menu Extras”. Edit “Menu Extras” and turn down the triangle for “Once” or “Always”, depending on how lenient you want to be with your users. Click “New Key” and where it says “New Item”, click it and select “International Menu Extra”. It will magically become a boolean key, and check to make sure it’s set to “true”. Click “Apply Now”.

[b]Character palette:[/b]

Add the character palette to the Input Menu via the International Preference Pane. Examine the following file:

~/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.HIToolBox.MACADDRESS.plist

You’re interested the following keys (on Leopard):

AppleDefaultAsciiInputSource
AppleEnabledInputSources
AppleSelectedInputSources

at least, that’s what works for us. You might wish to enable and disable a few different keyboard layouts, input sources, etc, to determine exactly what out of those keys is needed. Import that into WGM’s Detailed Preferences as a ByHost preference and set them as “Often” (since I don’t think they understand “Always”).

– Patrick

Question about moving the .plist files to the new machine… In both Nigels post on AFP and Greg Neagels post on word press they show a script to add the MAC address to the the newly added dscl files….. But I can’t get either to work. How are other people managing this?

thanks in advance

Kevin