Sharing files on OS X with ACL

A problem with the /Users/Shared folder in OS X is that it is only shared read-only. You can add write access to all items in the shared folder, but when a new user adds files, it will be read only by the others. With Tiger and ACL you can now setup a both read and write shared folder, which inherits write access to all files automaticly. Here is how;

First you need to enable ACL on your root file system:

sudo /usr/sbin/fsaclctl -p / -e

Then enable inheritable write access to the Shared folder:

sudo chmod -R +a
"admin allow delete,chown,list,search,add_file,add_subdirectory,delete_child,file_inherit,directory_inherit" /Users/Shared

"Well Known" TCP and UDP Ports Used By Apple Software Products

"Well Known" TCP and UDP Ports Used By Apple Software Products

Managed Client: How to prevent profanity from appearing in Dictionary

This is an interesting subject.
I guess this could be helpful to manage other preferences from the workgroup manager as well:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=305348

Actually this tip should help manage any preferences that use the plist format.
Now this is really interesting.

I wonder if I can turn off the software update function of iTunes...

Screensaver over LoginWindow

Unfortunately Apple does not supply a method of using a screensaver while the mac is in the login window.

This may however be accomplished using this hint:
Screensaver over Loginwindow

Screensaver Configuration

Some details on how to configure the behaviour of the default screensaver on Mac OS X:

The settings for the default saver are to be found here:
System/Library/Frameworks/ScreenSaver.framework/Versions/A/Resources/Engine Defaults.plist

More information on this subject here:
Screensaver configuration

Enable auto login via command line [update]

I have been wondering on how to do this for a long time.

Here's the clue:
On Mac OS X Server side there is this tool:
/System/Library/ServerSetup/serversetup

Amongst a lot of other features, it offers these functions:

serversetup -setAutoLoginUser Name UID Password
Set the autostart user using the name and password supplied.

serversetup -getAutoLoginUser
Returns the current AutoLoginUser.

serversetup -clearAutoLoginUser UID
Disables AutoLogin feature.

Now what if I copied this tool to a Mac client?
Guess what...

It works. Well sort of. Sometimes.
It works if the script is executed while logged in locally on the machine.
But that's not what I want.

But I found another hint here:

http://www.applescript.net/viewtopic.php?id=17957

What you can do is copy the file/private/etc/kcpassword generated on one machine to all the macs you want to log in automatically. It contains an encrypted password. Unfortunately there is no documented way of generating this file on a client. Hmm.

Then all you have to do is change the login preferences by issuing the following commands:

/usr/bin/defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow autoLoginUser yourusername
/usr/bin/defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow autoLoginUID yourUIDnumber

[update]
There is a cooler way to do this.
I found a utility whose name is 'kcpasswd'.
kcpasswd is a command line application that changes a user's KeyChain password.
That's not exaclty that I was looking for, but it comes real close.
So I sent an email to the author of 'kcpasswd' if there were any chance that he could support generating the /etc/kcpassword file.

After a while I received an email from Phill Tejada telling me that he had this new tool called 'loginoptions' which does just that.
Way cool and thanks a lot Phill.

Oh yes, the links, I almost forgot:
FruitBatSoftware
loginoptions