Login Window Background Picture Catalina

[GabeShack]

Hey all,
Just looking at Catalina and setting a custom login background window picture which has been very easy in the past and helps us quickly identify what machine goes to what building. I'm hopeful Apple would allow this part of the system to be modified with a config profile, but currently we would have to disable sip on all machines, which is not a pretty solution.

Anyone else trying to do this and maybe scripted a restart/disable/reenable of sip?

Gabe Shackney
Princeton Public Schools

[Hugonaut]

edit: you are talking about wallpaper arent you?

I use nomad & nomad login to solve that issue, granted it doesnt cover filevault login window, once they get past that if a user logs out, you have complete control without disabling sip, nomad lets you add your own wallpaper & login window image.

______this is my original post
this is still working for me on catalina

modify $CURRENT_USER variable to whatever you want and you should be good to go

dscl . delete /Users/$CURRENT_USER jpegphoto
dscl . delete /Users/$CURRENT_USER Picture
dscl . create /Users/$CURRENT_USER Picture "/Your/Icon/Here.jpg"

kextcache -system-caches

[GabeShack]

Sorry the actual background picture not the user picture.

Gabe Shackney
Princeton Public Schools

[Hugonaut]

updated my original post after realzing thats what you meant and then hazah you posted thats what you meant, @gshackney

[GabeShack]

Would love to find a scripted way to tell a catalina machine to reboot and disable sip then switch the login background screen then reboot and enable sip...which I'm pretty sure is quite impossible now.

Gabe Shackney
Princeton Public Schools

[GabeShack]

https://macreports.com/macos-catalina-how-to-change-the-login-screen-background/

If only I could automate....

Gabe Shackney
Princeton Public Schools

[jared_f]

This is also super annoying. In Mojave, I just replaced Mojave.heic, packaged it up in Composer, & pushed with a reboot. UGHHHHHHHHHHH

[James_h]

Having the same issue. I could do this in Mojave just like jared_f says in the post above. Does anyone know if Jamf has anything in the works for resolving this?

[mconners]

@jared_f & @James.h I spoke with an Apple engineer via our enterprise AppleCare line last week on this topic and he said currently, there isn't an automated way of doing this. I explained to him they took this functionality away from us admins. If someone knows of a way to automate this, we would love to hear how it's done.

[Hugonaut]

from what I understand, it can't be done without disabling sip - at this point our hands are tied until they release new functionality allowing ADE (DEP) devices via MDM to push a configuration profile managing those settings.

[James_h]

Thank you everyone! That's what I was thinking.