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Hi all



Has anyone been able to unlock the security preference pane as a non admin ?



i have tried different combinations but cannot get it unlocked including:



security authorizationdb write system.preferences allow



security authorizationdb write system.preferences.security allow

this is for 10.11.6


You cannot configure the security preference pane for that.
You can configure some preference panes to be unlocked by non-admin users.



In my testing these are the preference panes you can configure to allow access by non-admin users:
Energy Saver Prefs
Printing Prefs
Date and Time Prefs
Startup Disk Prefs
Time Machine Prefs
Network Prefs



Here is an example of how to enable non-admin access to energy saver and printing prefs.



#!/bin/sh
# This must be set to if you are going to allow non-admin access to any of the preference panes.
/usr/bin/security authorizationdb read system.preferences > /tmp/system.preferences.plist
/usr/bin/defaults write /tmp/system.preferences.plist group everyone
/usr/bin/security authorizationdb write system.preferences < /tmp/system.preferences.plist
#
# enable non-admin access to the energy saver prefs
/usr/bin/security authorizationdb read system.preferences.energysaver > /tmp/system.preferences.energysaver.plist
/usr/bin/defaults write /tmp/system.preferences.energysaver.plist group everyone
/usr/bin/security authorizationdb write system.preferences.energysaver < /tmp/system.preferences.energysaver.plist
#
# enable non-admin access to the printing prefs
/usr/bin/security authorizationdb read system.preferences.printing > /tmp/system.preferences.printing.plist
/usr/bin/defaults write /tmp/system.preferences.printing.plist group everyone
/usr/bin/security authorizationdb write system.preferences.printing < /tmp/system.preferences.printing.plist
# You must also add everyone to the lpadmin group
/usr/sbin/dseditgroup -o edit -n /Local/Default -a "everyone" -t group lpadmin


For details on the "security authorizationdb" command see Rich Trouton's blog.
http://derflounder.wordpress.com/2014/02/16/managing-the-authorization-database-in-os-x-mavericks/



Eric


@ericbenfer thanks for the information :)


This post also addressed this issue very well: (https://scriptingosx.com/2018/05/demystifying-root-on-macos-part-4-the-authorization-database/)


@tkimpton did you find a way to set system.preferences.security to be accessed my non admins?
I'm mostly after unlocking Accessibility under Privacy as certain apps need that permission to function.