Allow Security Preference Pane non admin

[tkimpton]

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

[tkimpton]

this is for 10.11.6

[ericbenfer]

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

[tkimpton]

@ericbenfer thanks for the information :)

[thomH]

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

[darshanp]

@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.