Hi,
Just wondering how people have found the best way to get the Chrome Homepage through Casper. Our company is pretty new to Casper, we have only had it in for a few months. I'm pretty windows based myself.
I did try using Composer, opening Chrome, setting the homepage etc. I found this worked however it override pretty much every personal setting the user had in Chrome so I wasnt really happy with that.
How have people done here?
Thanks in advance.
We use MCX, to manage Chromes homepage.
The key is: com.google.Chrome HomepageLocation
If you only want it set initially but then changeable you can do this.
Google Chrome Management
Master Preferences File
GBS Student Master Preferences file
EDIT:
Typo. Removed erroneous period from file
@bentoms I'm running v9.24 and I'd like to set the Chrome homepage to http://www.uncc.edu via MCX for all user profiles in a lab environment.
We already use the jamf setHomePage command for Safari and Firefox which has been working with success. I'm fairly new to managing MCX preferences and some guidance would be appreciated. I basically need to know what to punch in for the MCX fields. This is what I have at the moment, but it doesn't seem to be working:
Domain is com.google.Chrome
Key is HomepageLocation
(Don't know if this actually works, but just translating BenTom's note...)
It does create the .plist file under /Library/Managed Preferences/<useraccount> now. However, it still isn't setting the home page for Chrome when it launches. Any ideas?
I have a dumb question (or maybe two) since I can't get this to work properly. I'm attempting to implement the light touch technique employed by @rmanly, FYI. Does the Master Preferences file have to be inside of a subdirectory named "Master Preference File", or is that just the required text file name. Also what extension does the file need to be? Thanks all for your help!
@timlarsen][/url
“/Library/Google/Google Chrome Master Preferences”
Is the full path. Spaces on the file and no extension. It should be noted that some of the settings in here have been broken for a while.
https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=224410
https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=263803
For example if you want to suppress first run UI what you really need to do is create an empty file here:
empty file called "First Run" in \~/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/
EDIT:
P.S. mind the first bullet point above. If that preference file exists then master Prefs is ignored.
Thanks for clarifying @rmanly! I don't know if you or anyone else here has had the same issues that I do... but it honestly appears as if nothing I set within the file is working. I've tested by consistently wiping the contents of \~/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome (except for leaving my blank "First Run" file) and also trying a few example Master Preferences files from the chromium.org forums (to rule out any syntax issues). In any event I am intrigued by this post which combines the master preferences file with a sort-of default Chrome user profile for deployment (unless one already exists): http://www.thesadmin.com/2014/08/deploying-google-chrome-for-os-x/.
There was a change in homepage in our environment.
We changed the newhomepage in Chrome, Safari and Firefox using the below script. This script works if you know your existing homepage setting in the browser.
Thanks & Regards,
Karthikeyan
Here's what I use to set the homepage in Chrome \- whether or not it's already been set. I throw this code into a loop that goes through all of the home folders. Then at the end I move a clean copy into the User Template. It's all part of a larger homepages script that takes care of it for all of our major browsers.
@jagress can you send a full script for this? I have added your section above for Chrome but whenever I run the script is replacing the entire Preference file with just the startup_urls line of code.
Hey @ddcdennisb - Here's the full script...
@jagress Even when running your exact script, Safari and Firefox are fine. But when I launch Chrome I get the following error: "Your preferences can not be read. Some Features may be unavailable and changes to the preferences won't be saved."
Did you ever see this when testing?
@ddcdennisb It's been in production and working for a while, but at one point Google did change things around and I had to modify it. What version of Chrome are you using? Is that the version the preference files were created with? I'll try it out.
@jagress we are currently installing 43.x
@jagress Also this is a new process for my company. they have created a new Intranet site that they want pushed to everyone so this is the first time we are trying to push such configs.
@jagress thanks for posting this script. Are you using it with Yosemite machines? I'm finding that only Firefox works.
@ddcdennisb Looks like there was a change in the prefs file from 42 to 43. It works for me on 42, but not on 43. I'll have to modify the script to work again. I'll post an updated version when I have it.
I just set something like this up today. They key fields to note are gonna be HomepageLocation, RestoreOnStartupURLs, and the various settings you want to be forced(more of them found here) The plus side is that this will set the settings. The downside is it locks the settings. If you have things you want to force, this will work well.
(just copy/paste it into XCode and save it was something like ChromeForcedSettings.mobileconfig)
Does anyone know if it's possible to get rid of the annoying "Welcome to Google Chrome" screen where it asks if you want to set Google Chrome as your default browser the first time you launch Chrome? I've tried @rmanly's master preference file but that window is not suppressed. I know the file is working as other preferences from the file are being loaded on the first launch. I don't want Google Chrome to be set as the default browser and I don't want to see the window below at first launch.
@mpermann
I'm having issues with this as well, but I haven't looked into well enough. I know Google Chrome is ignoring the default browser key in my config profile.
From
https://www.chromium.org/administrators/policy-list-3
I know this is an old post, but maybe just maybe someone like me is stuck with Yosemite, and comes across this.
Run the following lines in a login script to set the browser as default for each user.
Assuming Chrome is already installed:
Very subtle solution and works quite nicely.
Kamal