Remotely adding items to a user's dock

Question

Remotely adding items to a user's dock

I have a lab of 30 machines all running 10.4.8 with ARD client 2.2. On my office machine, I am running ARD admin 2.2. I have two differnt accounts on the machines in the lab (one administrative, and one for students). On the student machines I have it locked down, including the dock. Some additional software has been requested to be installed onto the lab, which is no big deal, but where my issue lies is that I would like to be able to remotely add the application to the dock on the student accounts without having to log into each individual machine, unlock the dock, add it, then relock it. These are all local accounts, so I don't have them tied into an Open Directory server. Is there a way to do what I'm wanting to try? If not, I'll go around to each one and add it, no big deal, but it would be a nice time saver if I could.

Ben

Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Posted on Oct 12, 2006 12:52 PM

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Answer 1

Oct 12, 2006 1:01 PM in response to Benjamin Simpson1

I would just push a modified com.apple.dock.plist to the /<student>/Library/Preferences folder.

What do you mean by 'locked down'?

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Answer 2

varjak paw

Level 10

182,668 points

Oct 12, 2006 1:07 PM in response to Benjamin Simpson1

I haven't tried this myself, but this is what I learned elsewhere:

The command is:

defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-apps -array-add
'<dict><key>tile-data</key><dict><key>file-data</key><dict><key>_CFURLString</ke y><string>/PATH/TO/FILE
</ string><key>_CFURLStringType</key><integer>0</integer></dict></ dict></dict>'

The "PATH/TO/FILE" is, of course, the path to the application (e.g. "/Applications/iTunes.app/"), and it's all one string (no carriage returns). Similarly, if you change "persistent-apps" to "persistent-others", you could add a document to the Dock.

You'll have to run the command for every user you want to have the item in the Dock. If not for the logged in user, manually enter the username in the appropriate field in the "Send Command" dialog.

Obviously you'll want to test this before you try it with your entire lab.

Hope this helps.

Message was edited by: Dave Sawyer

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Answer 3

varjak paw

Level 10

182,668 points

Oct 12, 2006 1:30 PM in response to Benjamin Simpson1

Cancel the previous message; that command doesn't work. This command seems to work (at least it does locally; haven't tested it through ARD):

defaults write /Users/yourusersname/Library/Preferences/com.apple.dock persistent-apps -array-add '<dict><key>tile-data</key><dict> <key>file-data</key>
<dict><key>_CFURLString</key> <string>PATH/TO/APP.app</string><key>_CFURLStringType</key> <integer>0</integer></dict><key>file-label</key>
<string>APPNAME</string> <key>file-type</key><integer>41</integer></dict><key>tile-type</key> <string>file-tile</string></dict>'

Again, there should be no carriage returns in your command; they're just in this one to keep it from stretching the post out too far.

Hope it works for you.

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Answer 4

Oct 16, 2006 9:44 AM in response to varjak paw

I tried what you put in your second post, using iPhoto as the test, but it ended up resetting the dock to its defaults instead of adding iPhoto to the way the dock was currently configured.

Ben

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Answer 5

Oct 16, 2006 9:59 AM in response to derek smith1

Derek,

I just gave your idea a shot, and it worked.
What I meant by locked down was that they have limited privileges (can't modify the dock, can't install apps, can burn CD's, etc.).

I changed the privileges for one student account, modified their dock, relocked the dock, copied the com.apple.dock.plist file to my administrative machine, and pushed it out to the lab via ARD, all works well. Thanks.

Ben

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Answer 6

varjak paw

Level 10

182,668 points

Oct 16, 2006 10:51 AM in response to Benjamin Simpson1

Sorry; it worked locally through Terminal, but for some reason it's apparently different through ARD and blows away the Dock plist rather than adding to it. I'll try and work with it some more when I get a chance, but for now, it appears that the previous suggestion of pushing out the entire Dock plist is the way to go.

Regards.

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