MCX: Show a message when the screen is locked

[bentoms]

Hi Guys,

Any idea how to have the setting: Show a message when the screen is locked that can be found under the security preferences pane, enforced via mcx?

I've the loginwindow text either enforced via MCX or a config profile, yet this setting is not ticked?

[jarednichols]

I don't know where, but one trick I use is open Composer in file system monitoring mode. Make your change and then stop monitoring. It will at least give you a clue as to where to what plist holds that setting.

[bentoms]

Thanks Jared, i did that but omitted the location in my post.

The key is in /Library/Preferences/com.loginwindow.plist loginwindowtext

Which is the same key as the loginwindow message??

[golbiga]

Check the Managed Preferences template. Under com.apple.loginwindow is Login Window Text. That should be all that you need. I found that when I do defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow LoginwindowText -string "Text Here", I need to logout for it take.

Allen

[tlarkin]

I just confirmed Allen's method. I looked in my /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow.plist after altering system preferences and found this string:

<key>LoginwindowText</key>
<string>Screen is locked</string>

When I log out and am at the login window it displays the text at the bottom. OS X 10.7.3 here.

[swy · Accepted solution]

Right, that will give you the text at Loginwindow, but the OP (and I, google led me here) are seeking to also add the text to the lock screen. I'm trying to make it work through MCX via PM, but I've had a Casper customer confirm that he too can set the Loginwindow text this way, but text does not display while the authentication dialog on a machine that is locked due to sleep.

On a non-managed machine, sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow.plist LoginwindowText "message" inserts "message" on both loginwindow AND the lockscreen. So far, no method of MCX does. I've submitted this as a bug to Apple.