How can I duplicate a user?

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How can I duplicate a user?

I have a small lab of Macs running Snow Leopard.

There is an existing user on each machine (Student) and I want to create a duplicate of that user (Student 2) on each machine using ARD.

I can see how to add a new user, but I'd like to duplicate the existing user with all the "bits and pieces" (dock icons, permissions, files, etc) of that user on each machine.

I can't find any way to do that with ARD... or at least I can't find any place that this operation is documented.

Any help would be most appreciated.

Thanks!

Posted on Jan 10, 2013 6:49 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

TeenTitan

Level 4

2,640 points

Jan 12, 2013 12:23 PM in response to Jeff Curto

Ones you create the user you can copy the account from one user to another user

ie:

send unix command as root

ditto /Users/Student1 /Users/Student2

if you wanted to create the account and copy it, then you can do some thing like:

dscl / -create /Users/Student2 <--- must not conflict with another user

dscl / -create /Users/Student2 UserShell /bin/bash

dscl / -create /Users/Student2 RealName "Student2"

dscl / -create /Users/Student2 UniqueID "1015" <--- must not conflict with another user

dscl / -create /Users/Student2 PrimaryGroupID 80

dscl / -create /Users/Student2 NFSHomeDirectory /Users/Student2

dscl / -passwd /Users/Student2 SamePasswordAsStudent1

ditto /Users/Student1 /Users/Student2

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Answer 2

Jeff Curto Author

Level 1

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Jan 17, 2013 3:01 PM in response to TeenTitan

Thanks! Perfect!

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Answer 3

TeenTitan

Level 4

2,640 points

Jan 27, 2013 9:52 PM in response to Jeff Curto

BTW have you cosnidered a directory service? Such services can let you create accounts in one spot, and share the accounts to many computers

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