Customize dock for Active directory user logons?

[griff92]

Hi,

In our school we have about 16 mac mini's running os x 10.4.11, which we have binded to our MS Windows server 2003 Active directory domain.

Our student users log onto the macs with their active directory logon accounts no problem.

What I am wondering is if it is possible to customize the dock and desktop so that when any user logs on with there network accounts they only see the applications on the dock or desktop that I want them to see.

I have customized the dock and copied the com.apple.dock.plist and put it into:

/System/Library/User Template/English.lproj/Library/Preferences.

This didn't work however and I was wondering if there is a different way for Active directory users?

Any help much appreciated.

James

[Giaguara]

Hi James
You would have to use managed clients on those Macs.
You could either use augmented records on Mac OS X server bound to the AD domain, or extend the AD schema to include the Mac OS X managed client info.
With a single login from the client it's called "golden triangle", its using a combination of AD and client account management and Mac OS X server for the managed user features.

[kayote]

We just use a LoginHook shell script that copies the dock preferences file into their user preferences file.

cp /System/Library/User Template/English.lproj/Library/Preferences/com.apple.doc.plist /Users/$1/Library/Preferences/com.apple.doc

chown $1 /Users/$1/Library/Preferences/com.apple.doc

[daveguy]

Why not just create a new Default User Template?

Create an account specifically for this use (i.e. you don't want to give out this password), login to this account set it up exactly as your endusers should see it. Delete "login" keychain (and most likely any other user-specific keychains) from Keychain Access in the Utilities folder.

Just to be safe, you should make a backup of the current user template just in case anything goes wrong. Open the Terminal, navigate to a folder you would like to save the old template in, and type this:

sudo tar -cjf UserTemp.tar.bz2 /System/Library/User\ Template/English.lproj/

To delete the current user template, type this:

sudo rm -r /System/Library/User\ Template/English.lproj/*

Be very careful, typos are very bad!

To copy over the new user template, type this:

sudo cp -R /Users/TEMPLATE/* /System/Library/User\ Template/English.lproj/

Replace TEMPLATE with the name of the user account you setup before.

Now when a new user logs in, the screen they see will be the one you setup!

Hope that helps!