Use script to disable "smart quotes" on all mac

[SuperGrover]

Im trying to create a self-service policy with a script that will disable the "smart quotes" system setting but am running into issues getting this to work. 

defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSAutomaticQuoteSubstitutionEnabled -bool false

Above command seems to work fine when using it on my local device but when trying to use this command in a jamf policy, no luck. any ideas on how I can get this to work? Thanks in advance.

[AJPinto]

How are you trying to deploy it? If it works when you run it manually, but not when you run it with JAMF I am going to wager its something that needs to be done in the user space and not root space. Keep in mind everything JAMF does is done as root.

[SuperGrover]

Thanks for the reply, Iv been deploying it as a "File and process > Execute Command". Ill give it a try using the user space. 

[AJPinto]

Yep, that runs the command as root. If it is something that needs to be done in the user space, you are setting the value for the root user.

[r0blee · Accepted solution]

So as @AJPinto has pointed out the Jamf binary will execute everything as root but Jamf also knows who the current user is and stores that in the variable $2 at runtime so you could try something like the following to run it as the current user:

su $2 -c "defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSAutomaticQuoteSubstitutionEnabled -bool false"

Alternatively you could get the current user yourself via another command and then use those 2 commands in the files and processes payload of a policy:

currentUser=$(stat -f "%Su" /dev/console); su $currentUser -c "defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSAutomaticQuoteSubstitutionEnabled -bool false"

 Hope that helps. 

[SuperGrover]

Thanks for the info r0blee, this is very helpful.