Mac Question...Firefox 3.01 default settings for all users
 

Hi All,
I am running Tiger 10.4.11 in a student lab enviroment, the Macs are bound to Active Directory and Open Directory so student/staff log in with thier AD accounts and Computer settings are managed via Workgroup Manager. This setup is as the Bombich guide's on his website. Server is Tiger 10.4.11

Problem I am having now isn't major but anyways


I would like firefox to be pre-set up (homepage etc) so when the user logs in and runs firefox the homepage is set to our internal student website, doesn't matter if they change it as long as they get this first of all.


With Safari this is easy as there are settings in workgroup manager for homepage, searchpage and this works great. I know that plist files can also be imported into workgroup manager for settings to roll down to all users and also application manifests which are better in Leopard server IIRC


Firefox however doesn't make a "useful" plist from what I can see (homepage settings etc) and wont load and application manifest:(


I know that Firefox has the ability to make a default profile via the | firefox -profilemanager | switch

I have made a default profile as a test which I stored in /Users/Shared/Fox

This works great for any student that logs in provided the profile is called i.e

/Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox --profile /Users/Shared/Fox

The problem here is all users must have full access to the profile and access the same profile. Of course its only a matter of time before students molest the profile, bookmark porn sites, change the homepage etc and the fact that they may have access to other peoples saved passwords.

My next plan was to store the profile in the default user template location (System/Library/User\ Template/English.lproj) and therefore a user would get a fresh profile under their home directory which only they could access. The profile could then be called via

/Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox --profile $Home/Library/Fox

unfortunately doing this comes up with the error message "only one version of firefox can be run at one time". I have changed permissions but this not worked.

So to sum my question up..... does anyone know how to make Firefox settings roll down to all users on a Mac:)

You're essentially looking at software distribution here.

You could create a shellscript that mounts a share at login and copies the file from that share, thus it is a pull, rather than a push happening. The hard part I think is setting up the login stuff, the script should be pretty easy. Only downside is that you'd have the account and password to logon to the share containing the script, stored in the clear in the shell script. If you can use Applescripts then you could do the same thing with an Applescript app, saved as Read Only, at which point the contents cannot be viewed or edited.
Another issue is that if the script cannot get to the share, you won't get the new settings.

Another thought is to look for software distribution packages. ARD (Apple Remote Desktop) springs to mind. This will allow you to distribute files to a client desktop, thus you could push out the settings file. I think Timbuktu may also allow this.

Many Thanks as ever Markus, we have ARD 3.21 in the Uni. Awesome tool, would be lost without it for the mac deployment:thumb:

was looking for a way to manage the screen saver settings via workgroup manger (plist import) and stumbled across this

Firefox default settings « Managing OS X

browser config works for me but config file refuses to play ball:brickwall