How can I automate new system provisioning with scripts under Mac OS X 10.6?

Posted by deeviate on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by deeviate
Published on 2011-01-09T06:29:12Z Indexed on 2011/01/09 20:53 UTC
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I've been working on this for days but simply cannot find the correct references to make it work.

The idea is to have a script that will baseline newly purchased Macs that comes into the company with basic stuffs like set autologin to off, create a new admin user (for remote admins to access for support, set password to unlock screensaver and etc) .

Sample list for baseline that admins have to do on each new machine:

  • Click the Login Options button Set Automatic Login: OFF
  • Check: Show the Restart, Sleep, and Shutdown buttons
  • Uncheck: Show input menu in login window
  • Uncheck: Show password hints
  • Uncheck: Use voice over in the login window
  • Check: Show fast user switching menu as Short Name

    (note: this is only part of a long list to do on each machine)

I've managed to find some references to make some parts work. Like autologin can be unset with:

defaults write /Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences com.apple.userspref.DisableAutoLogin -bool TRUE

and I've kinda found ways to muscle in a new user creation (including prompts) with AppleScript and shell commands.

But generally its tough finding ways to do somewhat simple things like turn on password to get out of screensaver or to allow fast user switching. References are either too limited or just no where to be seen (e.g. I can unset autologin via cli but the very next setting on the system preference "show restart, sleep and shutdown buttons" is somewhere else and I can't find any command line to make it set)

Does anyone have any ideas on a list, document, reference or anything of where each setting on the system resides so that I can be pointed to make it work? or maybe sample scripts for the above example...

My thanks for reading thus far—a huge thank you for whoever that has any info on the above.

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