Favorite Servers

Not applicable

Greetings everyone. Casper newb here.

I would like to create a package for my mac users that contains 8-10 standard SMB network shares. The idea being a new user would have all necessary network shares saved in Connect to Network > Favorite Servers when they come on board. Or if they delete a share the package could be pushed out to the user through Casper Remote.

I tried to set this up through Composer and was able to build a package. But the package I built didn't list any of the shares I had saved in Connect to Network > Favorite Servers.

So I'm wondering if this can be done and if so how?

Thanks,

Gregory Lopez
Sr. Mac/Network Analyst
Wunderman - Seattle

4 REPLIES 4

milesleacy
Valued Contributor

I believe that's correct.
However the server items at ~/Library/Favorites/ are also plists, though
they lack the ".plist" extension. Below is an example file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "
http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>URL</key>
<string>http://webdav.domain.ext</string>
</dict>
</plist>

You should be able to create these files with plistbuddy. If you use $4 in
place of your string, you can have one script that can create any favorite
server.

----------
Miles A. Leacy IV

? Certified System Administrator 10.4
? Certified Technical Coordinator 10.5
? Certified Trainer
Certified Casper Administrator
----------
voice: 1-347-277-7321
miles.leacy at themacadmin.com
www.themacadmin.com

jarednichols
Honored Contributor

That should be easy to set up... All of those "favorites" for servers are just location files. You'll find them in the user folder/favorites. You should be able to wrap that up and distribute. The only issue I can see you running into is needing to distribute into the user folder, but ticking off the Fill Existing Users and Fill User Template boxes on the package should solve that...

j

milesleacy
Valued Contributor

No surprise here... I recommend scripting it.
If you deploy a plist file, you force every setting in your plist and
effectively delete any other setting already stored in that plist.

If you use `defaults` or `plistbuddy` to modify

/Users/$3/Library/Preferences/com.apple.recentitems.plist

then you can selectively modify the values you want to manage without
interfering with any other values in that plist.

----------
Miles A. Leacy IV

? Certified System Administrator 10.4
? Certified Technical Coordinator 10.5
? Certified Trainer
Certified Casper Administrator
----------
voice: 1-347-277-7321
miles.leacy at themacadmin.com
www.themacadmin.com

jarednichols
Honored Contributor

Isn't that just going to modify the "recent items" list in the apple menu? It sounded like he wanted to put the favorites in Go -> connect to server

j