Question about Tiger Managed Preferences with Casper

[russeller]

I've realized that some of the Managed Preferences (MCX) settings don't
apply to Tiger (10.4.11) systems. We have a large amount of Tiger
systems still in our environment. I'm wanting to fill the "mcx_settings"
field in their NetInfo database with a template of lockdown settings.
I'm trying this by deploying a text file with the settings to the
computers, then running this as a login script:

nicl . -create /users/$3 mcx_settings "$(cat
/Library/TIS/pvt/Scripts/mcx_settings)"

This seems to work when executed by hand, but when running the script
through a Casper Policy doesn't work, and the "mcx_settings" field in
NetInfo is filled by some settings from the JSS instead. This might be
because I have settings applied to Leopard and Snow Leopard computers,
that are probably getting applied to the Tiger systems. I'm guessing
that these settings are overwriting my script.

I'm needing some help on understanding when and how the JSS is filling
this "mcx_settings" field in NetInfo. Is there a way for me to stop the
JSS from filling this field while keeping Managed Preferences on for the
10.5.x and 10.6.x systems in our environment.

Perhaps there is another way all together to get this "mcx_settings"
field filled by the JSS. How does everyone else lock down their Tiger
computers with the JSS and without WGM?

Thanks,

Steven Russell
Capistrano Unified School District
Technology Support Specialist
(949) 234-5500
ssrussell at capousd.org

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[#2]

Steven,

The first thing I ran into was that if I had a prference that was set to be "system level" enforced, my settings would not propagate. The follow up to that issue was that the preferences are set at login. Since my network connection is not active until login completes, I was unable to get anything to operate. What we worked out was run a command through a policy "/usr/sbin/jamf mcx -username <the managed account>" that runs on a different hook (in this case, the every 15) Between that policy and going through all of the settings that I wanted on my 10.4 computers and making sure none were higher than "User Level" enforced I was able to start getting some success. Hope this helps a little!

Pat Best