Apple Remote Desktop Admin - Deploying ARD Admin Computer Lists in Classrooms

t_bissinger
New Contributor II

Hi everybody,

I'm really stuck. The last 2 weeks I try to deploy ARD Admin with classroom specific computerlists.

But first our environment:
We are a public school in germany with 600+ Mac-Clients OSX 10.8.5 in 60+ classrooms. They are managed by CasperSuite.
Our central file service is stored on an Linux Cluster which provides an Active Directory.

My goal:
I'd like to have an working ARD Admin on every teacher client wich only shows the student clients in the same VLAN (eq classroom) with some right restrictions (don't install packages; don't execute schell scripts, don't scan the whole network etc). the teachers have individual accounts and shall be able to screenshare and copy files over ARD, but don't get access to all clients in school .
What I need is a deployable and manageable workflow to do this (semi-)automatic.

My (main-)problem:
I don't get the workflow to import the computerlist classroom wise. I've tried to script a plist or provide it over file service. I've found several internet resources about the kickstart command and apple script. I tried to build a package via Composer & deployed it via Casper & FUT / FEU. But there seems no a solution for my problem. some interesting link is ARD-Inspector wich gives an reverse engineered readonly view to ARDs Database.

So ... am I the only one with this kind of problem? Anyone?
Thanks in advance
Tom

1 REPLY 1

davidacland
Honored Contributor II
Honored Contributor II

Hi Tom,

A bit of a different direction but in my view you would be better off with a product like LanSchool or NetSupport Assist. They are more purpose built for teacher administration of the classroom and setting up lists of computers can be managed by XML keys / config profiles.