Staff Access to ARD

[mellowip1983]

Our Head of IT is looking to use ARD a bit like RM Tutor on our PC's, has anyone ever set this up before? I think i could have him set as an admin but dont like the idea of him being able to copy, install and run unix commands.

[SC92]

Hi Mellow,

 

I don't think you'll need to set him as an admin - as long as they have access to the software I think they can just do the simple things, e.g. observe, control, lock/unlocking screens etc. I think the unix commands can only be run by the local mac administrator, but please do correct me if i'm wrong.

[mellowip1983]

have just attempted to observe a mac from the teachers login and i get "Authentication failed to smcc-imac-01" i did see a property on one of the imacs which said about where they could be controlled from, something to look into me thinks as its part of his 10 point niggles with the iMac room he requested.

[iSteve]

Authentication failed means an admin hasn't added the machines to the computer list. Either you :

 

1) Go to his machine and add the computers in to the All Computers list with your secret admin password as a one off

2) Manage your preferences and force the ARD.plist on his machine, where you have already set this up

 

Then, he can control / observe etc. Admin users can copy items and so on, OR you can allow any user to do this in ARD > Preferences

[mellowip1983]

Thanks iSteve, Just went to his room to try it out and turns out he has gone home already so shall give it a go in the morning.

[iSteve]

Also, this assumes that you have Remote Desktop / Management switched on on each Mac in your System Preferences > Sharing. You can activate this via command line SSH should you not want to move from the comfort of your coffee machine.

[mellowip1983]

i think that is enabled as i can ARD from our server to the machines

[mellowip1983]

looked at this a bit today, I could change the settings of ARD on the clients to allow directory based management the allows control by the following groups.

 

ard_admin, ard_interact, ard_manage, ard_reports

 

now i guess these are OD groups, so can I add an AD user to these groups in WGM? time to go hunting.

[mellowip1983]

Think this is sorted now, opened WGM and added a group called ard_interact. added our teachers group to this option.

 

The member of staff can now access machines without the ability to install copy or run unix commands.

 

Teacher is happy with what he can now do using ARD

[HodgeHi]

You can also get a simplified ARD tool bar as well to make things a little simpler for him. It allows access to the tools he would need without the whole GUI getting in the way.

[HodgeHi]

Here's the link. I haven't used it for a while though so not sure if it is still compatible with todays version.