Urgent Help! Transferring ARD Lists to another computer

Hi everyone,
I manage a large private school network of 300 or so macs. Each staff member has their own laptop. Some of our staff use ARD 3.2 to monitor their class.

The problem is, computers are moved around often and renamed, and so the lists and credentials get outdated and inconsistent quickly.

Ideally a program like ARD that connects to a server with all the updated lists would be perfect, BUT until then I figured the best way to keep lists updated is to do so on my own laptop, and then share the preference files etc so that staff can sync those lists and settings when their client is getting a bit outdated.

The issue is, I can't figure out what I need to copy across, plus I'm having permissions issues. I found a page which suggested I copy the preference file in the local and global library's preference folder, and the RemoteManagement folder in /var/db. Doing so did nothing except ask for the serial number and password again (and no passwords would work, so I'd have to click "Forgot" and reset it). I even deleted all those files and let ARD recreate them, and the old / outdated lists are STILL there.

Any help would be much appreciated.
Thanks
Rhys

MacBook Pro 17-inch, Mac OS X (10.5.7), Windows XP Pro installed on Bootcamp.

Posted on Aug 3, 2009 10:09 PM

Reply
7 replies

Aug 5, 2009 6:41 AM in response to Rhys Andrews

You could always transfer the database file located here:

/Users/~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.RemoteDesktop.plist

This plist contains all the information about your lists and all computer information you see in ARD. You will need to re-authenticate to each client but at least you do not need to type in all your computers and lists in your original ard session.

Aug 5, 2009 2:38 PM in response to matins

@matins
Strange, I've copied that across to other machines a number of times and it only worked once. I'm sure I put it in the correct library folder, too.

Using the export / import list function I found it didn't seem very consistent - the computer names on the list would be wrong, sometimes a bunch of the computers from another list will copy themselves into a newly imported list, etc. Will using the PLIST (if it even works) also store the computer names / the all computers list?

Aug 5, 2009 6:50 PM in response to Rhys Andrews

Using the export / import list function I found it didn't seem very consistent - the computer names on the list would be wrong...


That's because the remote management database and associated preferences were not transferred properly to the other machine.

ARD should not be running on the machines that you need to do this on. You will have to authenticate with at least admin level privileges to replace some of these folders and files.

Open your home folder, 'Go' -> 'Home' in the 'Finder'.

Open ~/Library/Preferences/Application Support.

There you will see a folder, 'Remote Desktop'.

'Ctrl-click' on it and select, 'Compress "Remote Desktop"'. A file will be created labelled, 'Remote Desktop.bz2', in the same folder.

Copy that file to the same location on your other machine. Delete the 'Remote Desktop' folder there. Double click on the compressed file. It will expand to a folder labelled, 'Remote Desktop'. Delete the compressed file.

Open ~/Library/Preferences.

You will see a file labelled, 'com.apple.RemoteDesktop.plist'.

Copy that file to the same location on the other machine replacing the copy that is already there.

Open /Macintosh HD/Library/Application Support/Apple.

There you will see a folder, 'Remote Desktop'.

'Ctrl-click' on it and select, 'Compress "Remote Desktop"'. A file will be created labelled, 'Remote Desktop.bz2', in the same folder.

Copy that file to the same location on your other machine. Delete the 'Remote Desktop' folder there. Double click on the compressed file. It will expand to a folder labelled, 'Remote Desktop'. Delete the compressed file.

Open /Macintosh HD/Library/Preferences.

You will see a file labelled, 'com.apple.RemoteDesktop.plist'.

Copy that file to the same location on the other machine replacing the copy that is already there.

Open the /var/db folder, 'Go' -> 'Go to Folder' in the 'Finder', type in the path.

There you will see a folder, 'RemoteManagement'.

'Ctrl-click' on it and select, 'Compress "RemoteManagement"'. A file will be created labelled, 'RemoteManagement.bz2', in the same folder.

Copy that file to the same location on your other machine. Delete the 'RemoteManagement' folder there. Double click on the compressed file. It will expand to a folder labelled, 'RemoteManagement'. Delete the compressed file.

Start the ARD application on the new machine. It may prompt for a new serial number because of the way the application hashes the serial number on individual machines.

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Urgent Help! Transferring ARD Lists to another computer

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