cshephard Posted July 30, 2015 Posted July 30, 2015 I am using Profile Manager with OSX Yosemite. I want to be able to control what goes in the sidebar in finder for my end users. In Mavericks I was able to login, set it and then copy the com.apple.sidebar.plist to WGM and push it out that way. I cannot do it that way with Yosemite and Profile Manager. Does anyone know of a script that would edit whats in the sidebar? I've seem scripts that edit the width of it but nothing where you can change whats in it. I want to hide things like the connected servers so that users cannot see computers and network shares etc...
JimmyA Posted July 31, 2015 Posted July 31, 2015 (edited) I've tried: Customising the sidebar then copying the user's com.apple.sidebar.plist through Profile Manager's Custom Settings applied to a device group, it doesn't deploy. I've tried removing every entry possible from the sidebar in case there was a reference to this specific user stopping it from working - still no joy. I've tried using plistbuddy and defaults to edit the sidebar. plistbuddy can only modify unloaded plists due to preference caching (https://macmule.com/2014/02/07/mavericks-preference-caching/) editing using defaults didn't work as it doesn't support nested keys. I might try to edit the plist offline though Apple recommend using the defaults command. Some useful information here: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/macenterprise/YgJnfqpyKNs For now I have created a default user profile with most of the sidebar entries removed then taken a NetRestore image, I want to add mapped drives to the sidebar though so I've not been able to achieve what I wanted to. Edited July 31, 2015 by JimmyA
Carter Posted July 31, 2015 Posted July 31, 2015 I've done the same by making needed changes with the default user profile but I have the user folders removed as they link back to the wrong user when a new user logged in. That said, one thing that does somewhat work though I'm waiting on it full production release is the fidner.plist from OS X El Captain. This file looks after the sidebar and I've tested it in OS X Yosemite and it does work but it's beta so for now it's a waiting game to see if it still works when it's fully released. At that time I'll use it in Yosemite to control the sidebar.
cshephard Posted July 31, 2015 Author Posted July 31, 2015 Probably a stupid question, but how do I make a default profile? I have just been installing everything I need, then imaging from deploystudio. Hopefully the el captain one will still work when it's fully released! Did you manage to push that as a custom setting in profile manager?
JimmyA Posted July 31, 2015 Posted July 31, 2015 Create a local user (DEFAULT in this example) make any configuration changes and run the following in terminal as an admin user: rm -rf /Users/DEFAULT/Library/Caches/* rm -rf /Users/DEFAULT/Library/Keychains/login.keychain rm -rf /Users/DEFAULT/Library/Preferences/SDMHelpData rm -rf /Users/DEFAULT/Library/Saved\ Application\ State/* rm -rf /System/Library/User\ Template/English.lproj ditto -V /Users/DEFAULT /System/Library/User\ Template/English.lproj/ chown -R root:wheel /System/Library/User\ Template/English.lproj/ du -sh /System/Library/User\ Template/English.lproj
Carter Posted July 31, 2015 Posted July 31, 2015 (edited) Create a local user (DEFAULT in this example) make any configuration changes and run the following in terminal as an admin user: rm -rf /Users/DEFAULT/Library/Caches/* rm -rf /Users/DEFAULT/Library/Keychains/login.keychain rm -rf /Users/DEFAULT/Library/Preferences/SDMHelpData rm -rf /Users/DEFAULT/Library/Saved\ Application\ State/* rm -rf /System/Library/User\ Template/English.lproj ditto -V /Users/DEFAULT /System/Library/User\ Template/English.lproj/ chown -R root:wheel /System/Library/User\ Template/English.lproj/ du -sh /System/Library/User\ Template/English.lproj This won't work properly for the sidebar. It will keep the settings but with Yosemite the user home folder and folders like desktop, downloads etc. will point to the default user folder and not the user that's logged in. This year with Yosemite I've had to remove all user related folders from the default user because of this. The sidebar.plist is what you need but it gets messed up with permissions. Edited July 31, 2015 by Carter
JimmyA Posted July 31, 2015 Posted July 31, 2015 That's what I've had to do too - remove the folders you mention from the sidebar.
Carter Posted July 31, 2015 Posted July 31, 2015 That's what I've had to do too - remove the folders you mention from the sidebar. Ya it's a pain in the butt! @cshephard if you are unfamiliar with the default userprofile you can use this script if you have an administrator setup the way you want all users to be. If you use one of these scripts use the latest links. Directions on the first page will work, just cannot edit the post on the forum. http://www.edugeek.net/forums/mac/72443-how-create-os-x-default-profile-template-bind-ad-10-5-10-8-a-3.html#post1303623
cshephard Posted July 31, 2015 Author Posted July 31, 2015 That's useful to know. I knew you could do default profiles with windows but didn't think you could with Mac. It's annoying that you can't put mounted drives in the sidebar. I have my macs set up with AD/OD. They login with their AD logins and can access their user areas saved on the windows side. I've now had to do local areas and windows ones as iMovie dosen't work with network volumes anymore. I wanted to have both their local and network areas on the sidebar
Carter Posted July 31, 2015 Posted July 31, 2015 The issue with the sidebar only started with Yosemite. Previous OS's were fine. Heck their new OS X El Captain works fine.
cshephard Posted July 31, 2015 Author Posted July 31, 2015 (edited) Could I be cheeky and ask for a copy of you El Captain sidebar plist file? Edited July 31, 2015 by cshephard
slancaster Posted August 4, 2015 Posted August 4, 2015 we use a symlink for iMovie to direct the "Movies" folder to a local folder. Works a treat and saves tons of network bandwidth.
Carter Posted August 4, 2015 Posted August 4, 2015 Could I be cheeky and ask for a copy of you El Captain sidebar plist file? I haven't tried since the first 10.11 beta but here are the Finder & Sidebar .plist files from the current release of 10.11 http://twistedmac.com/finder_sidebarlists_plist.zip 1
2097 Posted August 5, 2015 Posted August 5, 2015 Carter , much apreciated for these files. Bit confused on how they work . I have tried them with Profile Manager under custom settings ( both Device and User) , I tried unticking some boxs to show removable devices , change some tag names etc ( this is with the finder.plist) but does not seem to change anything ? Any chance you could give me a brief description on how you got them working ? Thanks
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