Pop window constantly asking for admin username and password

[pty10]

I got a few policies, the majority of them using configuration profile and a few using managed preferences. From time to time when students are using their Macbooks, a message windows keeps popping up asking for administrator username and password. Since I'm not sure which program(s) are asking to enter this information, I just tell students to press cancel and the message goes away but comes back again at some stage. (see screenshot attached)

I was wondering if anyone can point me in the right direction or tell me how to troubleshoot the problem and which application could be asking for this information. Or is there anyway I can stop this pop up message(s)

Regards,

Henry

[bpavlov]

Have you tried checking to see what processes are running when that pop up comes up? I'm guessing the student doesn't have admin access. Perhaps try using your computer without admin access to reproduce the same results. Eat your own dog food in other words.

[pty10]

@bpavlov Looking at the activity monitor there are probably around 50 processes running. Students dont have admin access and I'm logged on as a student. Should I enter the admin details or close the pop screen to see which process disappears?

[bpavlov]

Wouldn't hurt. It'll probably take a couple of tries before you find it but something's gotta give. You can also try asking the student what if anything they were doing before the pop up and see if there are any common responses. The more specific you can get with them the better chances of you finding out what's kicking that off.

Also while Activity Monitor may be helpful, try to do "ps -axc" in terminal before and after the dialog. It'll tell you all the processes running as well just make sure you're in an account with admin access in terminal ("su -l useraccount" where useraccount is the account with admin access to switch over to and then do "sudo ps -axc"). Hopefully someone may have better advice. Curious to hear what you find.

[lwindram · Accepted solution]

I had a similar situation recently. It ended up being due to some changes I made to a config profile over the summer. If you have Restrictions -> Media -> Disk Images Require Authentication checked:

It requires authentication to open all dmg's. Which includes those that are being installed by policy, causing an authentication window every time Casper tries to install a dmg.

[pty10]

@lwindram Spot on with your comment. I had disable disk images a while ago because we didn't want kids here at the school to be able to run dmg's to install games or other stuff they not supposed to. At the same time we do have a few dmg's running in policies. Once I enabled (allow) disk images, I haven't seeing any more pop ups asking for authentication details. Looks promising, thanks!

[pty10]

@bpavlov thanks for your input, much appreciated