[Greg Neagle]

[QUOTE][u]Quote by: tlarkin[/u][p]Some features from that link do not work….some do. It doesn’t work for what I want to do either. I think that this point I am going to deploy a non managed version and just say the heck with it. [/p][/QUOTE]

What’s not working for you?

In case it wasn’t clear, Managing OS X is my blog, and I’ve been using those techniques successfully to manage Firefox here since 1.x.

-Greg

[Greg Neagle]

[QUOTE][u]Quote by: tlarkin[/u][p]Where can I find more configurations for this? It looks like this is just CSS code that the jar files read? Also, do I need to install something extra for the command line stuff?
[/p][/QUOTE]

These are JavaScript calls, not CSS. You don’t need to install anything extra.

Since I can’t post links, search for Firefox lockPref.

[Greg Neagle]

[QUOTE][u]Quote by: tlarkin[/u][p]Also, how do I manage and deploy the FF add ons that I want all my users to have?[/p][/QUOTE]

I don’t manage any add-ons, but I think you’d need to do a global extension install as described here:

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Installing_extensions

and then package up Firefox. And then do it again the next time Firefox is updated. And again. And again…

[Greg Neagle]

You’ll need to add to files each time you update Firefox:

/Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/defaults/pref/local-settings.js

and

/Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox_aa.cfg

No hacking. This is a Mozilla-supported method for managing/enforcing preferences, and has worked since Firefox 1.x, (and the same concepts worked in Netscape) so I imagine this is as “future-proof” as anything is these days…

-Greg

[Greg Neagle]

Here’s a start:

Check out managingosx.wordpress.com and look for firefox-default-settings.
I’d post the URL, but this forum keeps deleting my replies as spam.

I’ve since changed my technique; instead of editing the existing /Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/greprefs/all.js file, I instead add this file:

/Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/defaults/pref/local-settings.js

Which looks like:

// MyOrg additions
pref(“general.config.obscure_value”, 0);
pref(“general.config.filename”, “firefox_aa.cfg”);

[Greg Neagle]

Are you sure it’s not crashing and rebooting instead? Check the output of `last` and `uptime`, and perhaps look at the system log.

-Greg

[Greg Neagle]

There are actually three names you need to set:

hostname – the DNS hostname.

LocalHostName – the Bonjour name

ComputerName – the name displayed at the loginwindow, and via certain network browsing protocols.

The LocalHostName and ComputerName can be set in the Sharing preferences pane.
hostname is set via DHCP, or via command-line.

You can also use scutil:

scutil –set HostName
scutil –set LocalHostName
scutil –set ComputerName

Unless you have something running at startup that resets these, changing them should survive a reboot.

[Greg Neagle]

Couldn’t you just enable the combo updates and not enable the delta updates?

[Greg Neagle]

Managing Office 2008

com.microsoft.office:
2008\FirstRun\SetupAssistCompleted
Value: 1
State: often

Works for me…

[Greg Neagle]

Some bits of info:

1) The NSGlobalDomain data is currently stored in a file called .GlobalPreferences.plist (note the leading period). Each user can have one, and there’s a “global” .GlobalPreferences.plist in /Library/Preferences

2) The defaults command has a nasty habit of changing the owner of the file to the user running the command and the mode to 600. So if you modify a user’s file as root with the defaults command, you could cause it to be owned by root and mode 600, and now the user can’t read the file. So be careful when doing this sort of thing as root; you may need to chown/chmod afterwards.

3) Don’t hard-code paths like /Users/$var/Library/Preferences. Your users may not all have home dirs in /Users. A better way to modify the defaults for a given user:

sudo -u “$username” defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSSpellCheckerAutomaticallyIdentifiesLanguages -bool FALSE

So:

#!/bin/sh

# get the current logged in user
cur_user=`/bin/ls -l /dev/console | awk ‘/ / { print $3 }’`

# modify user logged-in user’s defaults
sudo -u “$username” /usr/bin/defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSSpellCheckerAutomaticallyIdentifiesLanguages -bool FALSE
sudo -u “$username” /usr/bin/defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSPreferredSpellServers -array-add ‘( \”ga_IE\”, Open )’
sudo -u “$username” /usr/bin/defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSPreferredSpellServerLanguage ga_IE

Not sure about the quoting/escaping in the second defaults command; you may need to tweak it.

4) If this installer is run in an automated fashion, like via ARD, Casper, LANrev, or munki (as examples), there may be _no_ logged in user, and so it may not do what you expect. So you may want to provide a way for a user to configure these preferences for themselves later.

[Greg Neagle]

You might be able to do something with PlistBuddy and ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.desktop.plist.

Look at Background:default:ImageFilePath and Background:default:Placement

-Greg

[Greg Neagle]

[QUOTE][u]What I’m trying to do right now though, is add a default login item of Keychain Minder to my instaDMG image. I used PackageMaker to build a package to deploy Keychain Minder, and then I figured I’d add the loginitems.plist to /System/Library/User Template/English.lproj/Library/Preferences/ so any new user account automatically had Keychain Minder as a login item, to assist with the messy password expiration rules.[/p][/QUOTE]

You’d be better off adding this as a global login item to /Library/Preferences/loginwindow.plist; or even better, using MCX.

Adding it to the Template doesn’t affect network users, nor existing users (including those moved over using the Migration Assistant.)

-Greg

[Greg Neagle]

I agree with ThomasB’s recommendation about using a LaunchAgent that runs in the LoginWindow context. One more thing – after your script runs, instead of deleting itself, it should either delete the launchd plist that causes it to run, or sets the disabled flag to true. If you delete the script, but leave the launchd item is place, you’ll see launchd complaining in the system.log, since it’s being told to run a script that no longer exists.

-Greg

[Greg Neagle]

Use Directory Utility.
Click Show Advanced Settings.
Click the Services icon in the toolbar.
Double-click LDAPv3.
Click the New… button.

Hopefully, you can figure the rest out from there, as things like search base and LDAP mappings vary from organization to organization.

-Greg

[Greg Neagle]

Leopard does not allow arbitrary applications to display a UI over the login window. Applications must be specially written and specially invoked to display a UI over the loginwindow.

Some options include:

iHook – AFP548.com won’t let be post URLs, so here’s a partial: rsug.itd.umich.edu/software/ihook/
BigHonkingText (not sure where to find the current version, but Steve Hayman assures me it works over the loginwindow)
MunkiStatus – part of the munki project at (another partial URL) code.google.com/p/munki

-Greg

[Author]

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