Customizing User Template

[donmontalvo]

In the old days we used to replace /System/Library/User Template/English.lproj but in looking through some JAMF Nation threads it looks like most of you leave the template alone and instead push what you need to it.

We need to customize a good number of things for one of the clients we're deploying new Macs to, so I'm thinking it'll be easier to customize it once, capture it and replace the default User Template during imaging time. Of course we'd use PKG format so we can also be able to push the customized User Template to existing Macs.

I was curious, since we haven't done this on Lion yet, are there any gotcha's? Do we need to worry about the ByHost stuff anymore?

Thanks,
Don

[dzmudzki]

We had some problems with Managed Preferences from Casper and AD account as per:
https://jamfnation.jamfsoftware.com/discussion.html?id=4499

We decided to push all Apply Once User preferences into Standard User Template.

All Apply Always and ByHost prefs are manged from Casper Managed Preferences. We manage 10.6 and 10.7 client machines this way and so far so good.

[ktappe]

I'd be very hesitant to replace the entire template wholesale. Apple can and will change the format(s) of the plists therein in future releases. Further, you want modularity so that you can remove or add settings as your needs change. So you really do want to use a separate defaults write or MCX to make each setting. While it may be a pain to research the syntax of each setting, the view is worth the climb.

[donmontalvo]

@ktappe Thanks for the feedback, much appreciated. We usually take the modular approach, unfortunately the time/effort required for what the client is asking for (and the timeline) warrants packaging and updating the User Template. We don't have the cycles for this one. :(

This effort is for a group of around 50 Macs that have already arrived, going to a single group, so no concerns about Apple making any changes that would effect this deployment. :)

If we had more time, or if we were deploying the customized User Template to more (or other) groups, we would take the modular route.

Thanks,
Don

[rockpapergoat]

if you have all these changes modeled via mcx, it shouldn't take any extra time. i'm not sure i understand your problem based on your description.

[krusej23]

Can you package up a change to the English.lproj and push that out? I haven't done this and wasn't sure how permissions would work. Thanks!