Q: Pushing Out User Account Using ARD

Hi

You should be able to achieve this using the command line? The commands that follow need to be run as root. As an example let's use one of Apple's 'favourite' test users - Howie Doitt.

Create a new entry in the local domain under the category /Users

dscl . -create /Users/howiedoitt

Create and set the shell property

dscl . -create /Users/howiedoitt UserShell /bin/bash

Create and set the user’s full name

dscl . -create /Users/howiedoitt RealName "Howie Doitt"

Create and set the user’s ID (assuming only one account?)

dscl . -create /Users/howiedoitt UniqueID 510

Create and set the user’s group ID (the default staff group)

dscl . -create /Users/howiedoitt PrimaryGroupID 20

Create and set the user home directory

dscl . -create /Users/howiedoitt NFSHomeDirectory /Local/Users/howiedoitt

Set the password - if desired?

dscl . -passwd /Users/howiedoitt whateverpasswordyouwant

If you would like howiedoitt to be able to perform administrative duties

dscl . -append /Groups/admin GroupMembership howiedoitt

Restart the workstation(s) or log out the current user and log in again as the new user for changes to take effect. If there was no home folder created it will be created on successful login with the appropriate POSIX permissions set. You could pre-create the home folder in /Users using the mkdir command making sure you define that folder's name as the created user's shortname.

There are a number of ways of doing the above using ARD. You could do it command by command applied to a selected list of computers. Or combine the whole lot into a script and run the script. You could even schedule when the script can be run.

Tony

Hi Antonio - did you actually try this? On Leopard/SL it doesn't work.

AppleJason

I would not offer anything unless I've done it myself and know it works. Otherwise there's no point is there? Perhaps the problem is elsewhere?

Tony

Hi Antonio:

perhaps I am! that's why I'm here...

as I've stated, I get an error. right from the start:

dscl . -create /Users/howiedoitt

comes up with an error in my own terminal. SL 10.6.6
my acct is an admin as well....

AppleJason wrote:
Hi Antonio:

perhaps I am! that's why I'm here...

as I've stated, I get an error. right from the start:

dscl . -create /Users/howiedoitt

comes up with an error in my own terminal. SL 10.6.6
my acct is an admin as well....

You might want to tell him/us what that error is...

Hi

A clue regarding the error would be nice, however I'm going to guess the error you're seeing may look something like this?

<main> attribute status: eDSPermissionError
<dscl_cmd> DS Error: -14120 (eDSPermissionError)
<main> attribute status: eDSPermissionError
<dscl_cmd> DS Error: -14120 (eDSPermissionError)

If you're doing this locally you need to precede the command with sudo? If doing this remotely you run the command as root.

Tony

Yikes! My bad... it was sudo I was lacking..

Another question,

How do I know what PrimaryGroupID to set it to? Can I dump the existing groups/id's out from somewhere? server tools maybe?

Hi

sudo dscl . -list /Groups PrimaryGroupID

Tony