Anyone whose ever implemented networked home directories on and OS X Server has probably come across the need to add or remove preference files from user accounts. Changing settings for new accounts is easy, just add the files to the User Template folder.
Existing users is a different story though. They already have their home directories. Depending on how many users you have, adding/deleting files from you old users can be a daunting task. Ten users is easy enough, but 50 is silly and over 100 is ridiculous.
Long ago I wrote a series of scripts (well actually just one) that I use and modify for whatever files I need to change. I basically just loops through each home folder in a specified directory. It’s really a pretty basic script. Here’s an example of one that I was using:
# Copy new dock and fix permissions
echo "\ncpdock.sh"
dir=`ls $1`
cd ${1:?"No directory specified!"}
echo "PWD = `pwd`"
echo "\n$dir\n"
for folder in $dir; do
echo "...copying dock plist to $folder"
cp /com.apple.dock.plist $folder/Library/Preferences/com.apple.dock.plist
chmod -R 700 $folder/Library/Preferences/com.apple.dock.plist
chown -R $folder:staff $folder/Library/Preferences/com.apple.dock.plist
done
That’s easy enough. It’s kind of a pain though to modify the scripts all the time. Also, it’s very difficult (and scary) to try and explain how to use these scripts to my less Bash-inclined co-workers.
The other day I found this great little piece of software written by Nicole Jacque called Home Directory Helper. It does exactly what all of my scripts did, except with an easier to use GUI interface. Very nice, and highly recommended.
