Guest account on laptop cart MacBooks

[JKling]

I have about 150 white unibody MacBook laptops that we use on portable carts in our elementary schools. I am trying to image them with OS X 10.6 to auto login with the Guest account. We really only need them for 1 application and web access (testing mostly)

I was able to create the master machine. I used the http://www.michaelsmac.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=394 setup (which is AWESOME). The only issues I am having are when I reboot, the Guest account shakes me off. I need to log in as an Admin, disable, the re-enable the Guest account. That is not a major problem, just a little inconvenient.

The bigger problem is when I then log in as Guest it prompts me to update Keychain. I can "create a new keychain" but as it is the guest account, it never saves. I cannot update it because the Guest password is random...

I am open to any thoughts. I really want to use Guest because any changes that are made are reset with a log off.

[obi-k]

Any reason why you want to stay on 10.6? We use the Guest account on 10.8 & 10.9 without a hitch at our schools.

For your keychain problem, did you manipulate the System/Library/User Template files? The Guest account pulls the files from the template each time you restart or log out. So it must be pulling that Keychain. I'd kill it and test. That should be left blank so the template can generate it for the Guest account.

[JKling]

These are old laptops. I cannot install anything past 10.6 on them.

I did copy over the User Templates so I could set the Dock. I will see if I can clear out that DIR.

[pat_best]

We use a standard user account and run a script at logout that removes data from the user folders. Account creation can be done via Casper and it is very easy to package the items to create a student autologin policy post imaging. Here is the script I use:

#!/bin/sh


#Name of home folder
a="/Users/student"


#So the folders are not deleted along with their contents
b="
-not -name Documents 
-not -name Desktop 
-not -name Downloads 
-not -name Pictures 
-not -name Movies 
-not -name Music 
-not -name Sites 
-not -name Public"


#Exceptions
c="
.localized|
.DS_Store|
$a/Library|
$a/Documents/Adobe|
$a/Documents/Microsoft User Data|
$a/Pictures/iPhoto Library|
$a/Pictures/iChat Icons"


rm -Rf $(find $a/* $b | egrep -v "$c")

On a side note, I like using dockutil to manage user docks as it allows for easy editing. I previously used dock packages to make dock changes but it became cumbersome to remake and deploy a package to remove a dock item. Hope this helps!

[Morningside]

I struggled with the keychain thing recently too, when I fiddled with the user template. The advice I found was to go into /System/Library/User Template/English.lproj/Library/Keychain and delete all of the files in that directory. That worked perfectly for me.