login window profile - adjust the font size? make the text box bigger?

[ezemke]

We are in a university that has a 'use of this computer .... blah blah' message that is displayed for all computers that are on the network at the login screen. After creating a profile, the good news is that is showing up. The bad news is that the text box is too small and so only a portion of the message is getting displayed on the 21 imacs, on the 27 iMac it is giving a scroll bar but ideally there is a way to make the text box and/or font bigger?
(i know have a shorter disclaimer, but that out of scope for me)

[mm2270]

Have you considered using the method of dropping an RTF file in /Library/Security/ named "PolicyBanner" with the text you want? This displays a dialog with an "Accept" button over the login window every time the login window appears, whether someone is logging out, or the Mac reboots, etc. You can style this however you want.

Regarding the latter method a a policy banner under the login fields, I don't think that can be modified, but I'd be interested to hear if anyone has other ideas on how that display can be adjusted.

[rtrouton]

What OS are these Macs running? If it's 10.7.x or higher, I'd recommend using a policy banner instead as that gives you a number of formatting options. I have a post on how to set up a policy banner available here:

http://derflounder.wordpress.com/2011/08/04/using-a-login-banner-with-filevault-2/

The post references FileVault, but policy banners work on both encrypted and unencrypted Macs.

[ezemke]

rtrouton
Thanks for the policy banner tip... that gets me about half way there.
This works for getting the message as the computer is booting, however I am looking for something that happens at login. (from a directory server)
There does not appear to be a /user/library/security/ directory, so am wondering if there is something that could be done via script/policy.

other/additional thoughts?

[mm2270]

You'd want to look at using a LaunchAgent to run a script to display a dialog of some kind. LaunchAgents run whenever someone logs in and are pretty much immediate. They don't rely on connecting to the JSS to run a policy, which could end up with a delay before it kicks in. On the other hand, you could cache the policy for offline mode, so it will be on the Mac to run regardless of whether its connected to the JSS.

One thing to keep in mind is that even with a script to open a dialog, the user could simply ignore it, i.e, push it aside or off screen, etc. Unlike the PolicyBanner tip which must be acknowledged before log in can even happen.