Configuring OSX clients via ssh

xarcom

Registered
Hi,

I've configured one of our eMacs to work within our environment. The Mac is running OSX 10.2 (client). I would like to be able to configure the rest of the 30+ machines through SSH. I'm a Unix Admin / Developer so I'm used to writing scripts to do this kind of work. Unfortunatly, I have no idea which files to modify !

Here's my problem: We have a lab of 30 machines that will be used by a number of people each with their own accounts authenticated against an LDAP server. I need to be able to configure the following:

- Network settings
- Internet options (browser homepage, etc)
- Login Hooks
- Account options (turn off show password hint after 3 attempts...)
- Date & Time configuration

I already know how to do all of the above through the UI, but I'm hoping I won't have to do this manually on the machines...

Where are the appropriate files stored that contain the above information. Please note that these are system wide (global) settings.

Thanks in advance,

Xarcom
 
So, the main Mac, the one acting as server is running 10.2 client, not server?
And the rest are running 10.2 client too?
 
There is no OSX server, the LDAP is running off a Linux host. The eMacs are just using LDAP for authentication and some non mac specific account management (uid,home directory, default shell, etc.)

I just need to know what files need to be modified so that I can apply the changes to the 30 other eMacs without going through the GUI. Do you know which files are modified when I perform the operations detailed in my previous email ?

On a side note, how can I set the default browser page for all browsers ? Is there a way to do this in 10.2 or is it a per browser thing ? I can see that this can be set in the System Preferences, but even Safari doesn't seem to care what the value is set at... Any idea where the default configuration settings are stored (and are copied over to a vanilla account the first time a user runs safari..)?

Thanks again for looking into this,

Xarcom
 
You might be able to find out this way - leave an emac alone for 24 hours. Then apply the changes by hand, and

find / -mtime 1

To find all files changed in the past day. Of course, you'll probably end up changing a bunch of netinfo variables. I suspect using something like

nigrep . . > file

before and after the change, and using diff to compare the files, would tell you what you need to know. Not elegant, but it should work...
 
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