I have a room full of mac mini’s attached to a Windows 2003 server and we’re having connectivity issues. I would like to create a script that will allow me to:
Mount 2003 volumes without supplying username/password
Start SuccessMaker application
I would also like to save this script as an icon to the desktop. My background is primarily with non-Mac environments and I’m having to learn as much as I can about a Mac in a short amount of time. I’m hoping for some direction on this problem.
I also need to lock down the desktop because this is a classroom full of k-5 grades. As you can imagine every day the desktop is different. I’m looking for an option that is similiar to the Microsoft policy of “don’t save settings on exit”.
Howdy. I’m still a newbie myself (though I’ve learned a LOT in the past 7 days).
I believe you want something like this (most of this I’m borrowing from other folks). If it doesn’t work, do a search for “mount volume” and a lot of other solutions will present themselves.
--mount volume
mount volume "afp://MYSERVER/Sharename" as user name "user_name" with password "password"
--launch application
tell application "SuccessMaker" to activate
I’m guessing this won’t work if SuccessMaker is located on the server.
If that’s the case, you might want to try:
do shell script "cd /path/to/file; open SuccessMaker.app"
As for locking the desktop, that’s easy (I’ve done it on several of my machines). The easist way to do this is to login as administrator (the kids account needs to be logged off), go to System Preferences, choose their account, and set Parental Controls (I assume you’re running Tiger). Select Finder and choose Configure. Select 'Simple Finder" and they will no longer be able to access the desktop.
If you need something more secure, you can open Terminal and enter “cd /System/Library/CoreServices”. Next, enter “sudo chmod 750 Finder.app”. Enter your admin password when prompted, and the Finder/Desktop will be inaccesible for ALL users. You can undo this by going to the same location and typing “sudo chmod 755 Finder.app”.
Thank you so much for this info. It works fantastic but has now brought up two new questions:
I have created a student account, implemented parental controls and need to add the ability for the student to launch the script that I just created but it keeps coming up as “does not work with limitations you have chosen”. This happens when I’m limiting the applications they can run and I’m trying to add the ability to run my script which mounts volumes and starts application “SuccessMaker” Any ideas?
Is there an option to add an icon to the desktop of a managed user that has parental control enforced?
It may be a rights issue. Look at the login of your applescript as opposed to your login of your student. Then decide if those two logins have the same rights. If it is the same login… Well, I am not sure in that case.