An easy way for Instructors to copy resources to student machines

[CapU]

I have been racking my brain on this.
The Instructor wants to copy resources to the student machine. We already have a folder in /Users/Shared/ called Instruction. To aid the unfamiliar OS X users, I mount the folder on the desktop.
The instructor comes to Service Desk and says "I want this 50GB copied to lab name in blah blah folder in Instruction" They know to come to us the night before with such a request.
I would like to offload this to the instructors but can't figure out a simple way to bring it about. Anyone have any ideas?

[Look]

Why not just have each lab have a mounted "Instruction" network location and have the instructor place the data there and give the students read only access.
Alternatively if you have bandwidth / read speed issues during class have this and also have a policy on the client machines that synchronises this location with the local instructions location every evening.

[CapU]

On the student machines we have folders mounted from the Network and the Shared folder. The Instructors are hesitant on trusting the student to either go to the network and get the resources or navigate to a local folder. Therefore the pervious Mac Admin has "spoiled" the users into allowing then to bring gigs of resources to copy to the student workstations. He would also put icons on the Dock for the same reason. Why the instructors don't show the students how to navigate around the system is beyond me. We no longer have to move icons to the dock.

[thoule]

If this were my task, I would likely schedule rsync with a cron job. Setup a server and have the instructor copy data to it. On the server run rsync in daemon mode (to specify a password). Then the clients can run rysnc to pull down the content. If you wanted more control, you could inspect the content they want on the machine and use the JSS to issue an rsync command...

[CapU]

I want to off load this to the instructors. I need some sort of gui or a special folder that the Instructor can drag content to a folder on their desktop the automagically gets copied to the server or the students machines.
To give them a terminal command would incite a riot here

[mm2270]

I'm not all that familiar with the right syntax, but it sounds like you may want to look into Folder Actions, which is an Applescript function that can trigger a script to run when the contents of a folder are changed, like something being added to it. Automator may be your friend here as I think it can create automator workflows that can get triggered by a folder action.
When you launch Automator and start a new workflow, in the selection sheet that you see, one of the options is "Folder Action"

[CapU]

Nice one!!! That gives me an idea and a way forward.

[CapU]

[nessts]

Microsoft one drive if you have office 365 accounts, Google drive if you have Google accounts. Box is another option. A server folder that all computers mount is another.

[CapU]

Internet shares is not a good option. Some of the resources is 70GB in size

[CapU]

Folder actions is the way to go. I can build the folder with the computers in the labs. Name the folders to correspond to the labs. I can build and maintain on my machine

[mm2270]

If you do go with folder actions, I suggest not trying to build out a full Automator workflow from all the workflow pieces. I would look at scripting the process of doing an rsync or some kind of copy operation with shell or Applescript, from the files/folders that are passed into the folder action item. It may be easier to get it to do exactly what you want. In other words, I would just drag in the "Run Shell Script" or "Run Applescript" items to the workflow and then paste in a script there.
Of course, that's really up to you, my suggestion is just that, a suggestion.

[CapU]

Hi mm2270

What if any would be the "gotcha" for using an Automator workflow? I just blew my colleges mind by showing him the what I just did in Automator (He is windows support so its not hard)

[mm2270]

Hi @CapU As far as I know, there should be no "gotchas" as long as you have it doing what you want. I only made the suggestion because I may have incorrectly assumed you wanted this automated process doing something more complex than what a boiler plater Automator workflow can usually do. It could just be that I don't have a good handle on it, but whenever I've tried to get Automator to do something semi complex, its been an exercise in frustration. That could just be me though. If you can get it working with straight Automator functionality, then more power to you!

[CapU]

I am looking to put a script into the automator workflow using rsync (or something similar) Is it possible to use rsync without ssh. I don't think movie clips and audio require encryption for internal transfer. I'm just worried about the set up of this script on potentially 5 Instructor machines with 3 different sync folders on their desktop