Permanently Modify Mac OS X Guest Account in OSX Sierra?

Hello everyone


We have new Mac Minis running OSX Sierra at the school where I teach. We uses the guest login for our students in order that the login is always clean. But we would like to permanently modify that guest login (dock, wallpaper, first runs etc) On our old systems running Leopard, I followed the following help, which is no longer on its original webpage but I have it on Evernote here.

Any help how this can be done with OSX Sierra? Thanks in advance for help or links!


Morgy

Posted on Dec 20, 2016 12:48 AM

Reply
11 replies

Jan 18, 2017 7:46 AM in response to Morgy

So the main part is OK now. Notice that I used German.lproj in the code since I am in Switzerland using German.


However, there are still two concerns:


1. Every time the guest is logged in the following windows appears (in German in my case) and I must create a new key chain. Any ideas how I could stop this?

User uploaded file


2. We need Gimp on our system whose first run takes several minutes even on our fast Macs running on SSD. What Gimp creates during first run seems to be stored in

Users/Guest/Library/Application Support/Gimp/2.8/

and not in/System/Library/User Template/German.lproj/Library

Any ideas how I integrate this Gimp-folder my guest account?

Thanks for help and ideas!
Morgy

Jan 18, 2017 7:26 AM in response to Morgy

Hello again


As there were no answers here I just tried around a bit and found out that the guest account indeed can be permanently modified! However, the code above is incomplete and needs elements found in the above Evernote-link. It works as follows. (In the example, "admin" is the login-name of the admin-account.)


Code:

sudo admin

(Enter password)

sudo -s

(Enter password again)

cd /Users/Guest/

rm -R "/System/Library/User Template/English.lproj/Library"/

cp -R Library/ "/System/Library/User Template/English.lproj/Library"/

Jan 18, 2017 8:09 AM in response to Morgy

So the main part is OK now. Notice that I used German.lproj in the code since I am in Switzerland using German.


I wanted to edit the posting just above but could no longer.

- The keychain prompt disappeard after one more boot.

- The folder Users/Guest/Library/Application Support/Gimp/2.8/ is already there after guest login.

So there only is one concern left:


We need Gimp on our system whose first run takes several minutes even on our fast Macs running on SSD. Unfortunately, doing the above steps doesn't prevent Gimp from doing the long first run after each guest login combined with a computer reboot. Does anyone know where Gimp stores whatever it is writing during first run? And if and how I could integrate this in the guest template?


Thanks for help and ideas!
Morgy

Apr 20, 2017 8:07 AM in response to Morgy

I could not modify the permissions for System to view its contents. I logged in at the root user and have my Finder views to show hidden files and folders. None of these responses apply running the latest version of macOS Sierra (10.12.4). Folder /System/Library/User Template/English.lproj/Library/Keychains does not exist. Folder /System/Library/User Template/English.lproj/Library exists. Is /System/Library/User Template/English.lproj/Library/Keychains supposed to be a standard folder in macOS? If so it's not on my system anywhere.

Oct 18, 2017 5:13 AM in response to BezRhf

Hallo BezRhf

War eine Weile nicht mehr hier und kriegte keine Benachrichtigung...
Ich habe keine andere Anleitung als die hier oben gesammelten Infos. Das Wichtigste zusammengefasst:


Gemachte Gast-Einstellungen speichern mit diesen Terminal-Befehlen:

Code:

sudo admin

(Enter password)

sudo -s

(Enter password again)

cd /Users/Guest/

rm -R "/System/Library/User Template/German.lproj/Library"/

cp -R Library/ "/System/Library/User Template/German.lproj/Library"/

Verhindern, dass bei jedem Guest-Start der Schlüsselbund immer neu erstellt werden muss mit diesen Terminal-Befehlen:
mv '/System/Library/User Template/German.lproj/Library/Keychains' '/System/Library/User Template/German.lproj/Library/Keychains.old'

mkdir '/System/Library/User Template/German.lproj/Library/Keychains'

Oct 18, 2017 5:59 AM in response to Morgy

Most important information of this thread in German:
Den Gast-Account unter OSX Sierra bleibend abändern:


1. Als Admin eingeloggt sein. Via User-Schnellwechsel auch als Guest einloggen.

2. Im Gast-Konto alle gewünschten Änderungen machen: Dock, Erst-Starts, Fenstergrösse etc. Den Guest nicht ausloggen, sondern via Schnellwechsel zurück zum Admin wechseln.

3. Gemachte Gast-Einstellungen speichern mit diesen Befehlen in der App "Terminal" (im Ordner Dienstprogramme):

sudo -s

(Enter password)

cd /Users/Guest/

rm -R "/System/Library/User Template/German.lproj/Library"/

cp -R Library/ "/System/Library/User Template/German.lproj/Library"/

4. Auch aus dem Terminen mit diesen Befehlen verhindern, dass bei jedem Guest-Start der Schlüsselbund immer neu erstellt werden muss :


mv '/System/Library/User Template/German.lproj/Library/Keychains' '/System/Library/User Template/German.lproj/Library/Keychains.old'


mkdir '/System/Library/User Template/German.lproj/Library/Keychains'

Dec 21, 2016 1:21 AM in response to Morgy

I found the some intructions here in a post from 2014 for OSX Yosemite. Are they the same for Sierra?


1. Customize your space, logged in as Guest.

2. Once you've modified the guest account as desired, close all apps.

3. Be sure to delete things like browsing history (you were surely looking at that webpage for guidance, and had safari open.)

4. Next, switch users (don't log out) into your admin account.

5. Finally, now open terminal in YOUR account and do the last steps of that guide:


Code:

$ cd /Users/Guest/

$ rm -R "/System/Library/User Template/English.lproj/Library"/

$ cp -R Library/ "/System/Library/User Template/English.lproj/Library"/


This will prevent the guest from having apps re-open upon login.

And then, there is this thread for Mountain Lion from 2013. However, things seem to have changed with Sierra and I don't know how to figure out the right way to edit that guest account now.

Any help or ideas?


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Permanently Modify Mac OS X Guest Account in OSX Sierra?

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