Administrative levels on Mac

[tobiasclarity]

Hi all,

 

We have a user that wishes to make certain changes to the mac he is using like updating itunes and changing other bits but we dont want to give him full admin rights as this is not inline with our user policy. Is there a half way house we can use to allow certain areas?

[stevehp]

From a gui perspective you only have two choices a standard user and the full bones administrator. There are some options though.

 

Mac OS X 10.7 / Lion – First look at /etc/authorization usage | mattsmacblog

mattsmacblog | Notes of a Mac Sys Admin

 

The two links above are for a blog written by a mac sys admin that has taken upon himself to use the /etc/authorization file and tweak it so standard users can still be so, but have unfettered access to certain System Preference panes and Software Update. iTunes is a tricky one though, it can both be updated through software update as well as within the app itself so I don't know if issues might arise if he were to attempt the update through iTunes.

 

Or... if you have some spare time you can setup and run Munki. The server doesn't need to be a Mac just an ordinary web server, but you will need a Mac to administer the other aspects of it besides the serving of the software. The user will be presented with a GUI (Managed Software Update) that is intuitive enough for a newbie to operate. The best part is the user doesn't need administrative rights to install the software you pushed out as it runs the installers at the root level. It can also be configured to dish out Apple Software Updates from either Apple themselves or from an internal SUS and those can be installed by a standard user.

Edited October 4, 2013 by stevehp