The syntax errors probably means you have an extra single or double quote somewhere in the script. If you have been doing some copying/pasting, make sure to disable smart quotes (and dashes) as they sometimes cause problems.

defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSAutomaticQuoteSubstitutionEnabled -bool false
defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSAutomaticDashSubstitutionEnabled -bool false

As for the execution error, I have typically seen that if access to assistive devices are not enabled.

I have the scripts that I use for scripting a GUI login hosted on Github:
https://github.com/jacobsalmela/login-user-to-gui-via-cli

In my environment, I use this trick all the time all of the time. Manually touching 200+ computers to enter the username/password is not feasible (we do not use auto-login as we have multiple users). I'm currently using a Python script for this, but the bash version works fine, too.

I have gotten this to work on Mavericks and it also seems to work in Yosemite.

Jacob,

Thanks for your response. I entered everything by hand in nano and TextMate, so I'm positive there are no smart quotes at all. The error 2741 indicates that it was looking for a regular double-quote, and said character is encapsulated by smart quotes (“"”).

I did touch /private/var/db/.AccessibilityAPIEnabled per the suggestions from some of those links I included, and confirmed that Access for Assistive Devices was enabled. However, I still did not achieve success with any combination of the scripts mentioned above.

BTW, the interpreter I'm using is #!/bin/sh . Your script specifies /bin/bash. I thought Casper Remote mandated the use of /bin/sh. Does it make a difference in this case?

So I tried this manually at the command prompt, error 2740.

Screenshot: http://imgur.com/TjUhVEP

I edited the screenshot, so if you're reading this from email the first link is long gone.

http://imgur.com/TjUhVEP

I don't think there is a huge difference; I have just always used bash.

Everything does look correct in your image. I see your entering it manually over ssh, have you tried saving it as a script instead of running it directly from the shell? I typically run the entire script from ARD.

Otherwise, I have seen the sudo touch /private/var/db/.AccessibilityAPIEnabled, not take effect until a reboot.

I've been trying to simulate the environment of Casper Remote scripts by running as root with /bin/sh as the interpreter. Or at least I assumed that was the case. Apple Remote Desktop forces all scripts to run as /bin/bash . Can other types be used in Casper Remote?

I have had mixed results using the GUI login scripts via Casper Remote--but I get 100% success with ARD.

To answer your question: yes; whatever shebang your script is set to in the JSS, it should run as that. For instance, I have all three, Python, bash, and sh:

#!/bin/bash
#!/bin/sh
#!/usr/bin/python

If you still want to do it manually over SSH, you could try breaking the commands up instead of using the EOF method:

....
osascript -e 'tell application "system events" to keystroke "username"'
osascript -e 'tell application "system events" to keystroke tab'
osascript -e 'tell application "system events" to keystroke "password"'
...

Hi Jacob,

I still can't run this manually as root at the command line, so I'm 99% sure it's going to fail when I try it in Casper Remote on Monday.

Here's what I'm doing to simulate this:

1) I make sure .AccessibilityAPIEnabled exists, and rebooted the machine just to be sure
2) ssh into the machine as macadmin
3) run 'sudo su -' to elevate to root.
4) run /bin/bash to switch interpreters. The prompt now reads bash-3.2# 5) run your first command (osascript ... "username") manually, and this appears: 36:56: execution error: An error of type -10810 has occurred. (-10810)
6) run the same UNIX command from ARD, run as root, and it works.

I'm testing all of this at home on a Parallels 9 instance running 10.7.5. My host is running Mavericks.

What am I missing here?

Forgive me if this wouldn't apply for you...since 10.7 I have sometimes used a workflow where a .pkg or .dmg that enables auto-login for a certain admin account is installed and then reboots the machine. Upon startup it auto-logs in and then immediately disables auto-login for the next reboot before it does anything else. If interested I can send you a list of the contents of that dmg.