User Maintenance

ULabMin can also report what schedule is used by that client, the last date that maintenance successfully completed, and whether or not there was an error the last time maintenance was attempted to a web database, providing administrators with a centralized repository of data about clients.

Manages /etc/crontab
ULabMin needs to manage crontab in order to handle maintenance scheduling. The way this is accomplished is that the cron entries for all of your computers is stored in a cron_settings file, which is usually deployed to your clients via radmind. ULabMin then uses the IP address of the machine to extract the appropriate cron entries from the cron_settings file. A nice benefit is that this could be used to manage any cron entries, not just the automated maintenance.

User Experience

Sets screen resolution at login/logout/startup
ULabMin allows you to specify a default screen resolution. At login, logout, and startup ULabMin will set the display to the default screen resolution. Specific settings for extra large screens and wide screens can also be set for mixed-display environments.

Resets printer settings so that other user's print jobs are deleted and printers are restored to defaults
When a user that still has pending print jobs logs out, and another user logs in, the second user will be unable to print. For this reason, ULabMin deletes previous users' pending jobs.

ULabMin also restores printers. Users can add or remove printers — for legitimate or nefarious reasons — and the printers you want, and only the printers you want, will be restored for the next user.

Can turn the computer into a kiosk
ULabMin can be used to turn a computer into a kiosk. The Finder and Dock are disabled. Finder is replaced with either Safari or Internet Explorer. If the application is quit it will be relaunched. If all of the browser windows are closed, a new one will be opened. When the screen saver activates, the browser preferences and history are reset by replacing the home folder with a template and all apps are quit and the default browser is relaunched. Kiosks can be configured so that authentication is required before they can be used, or they can be configured so that a browser window or the screen saver is always active and logout disabled.

At every login, a new home folder is created, thus insuring a secure and known working environment
In cases where you don't want to preserve your users' settings, such as an open lab at a university, ULabMin can be used to manage users' home directories. This is especially important to preserve privacy and security. Some websites store sensitive information in the URL, and after one user leaves the computer, it is not desirable for the next user to be able to view the URL's that the last person visited. There are also keycapture utilities in Mac OS X, and if one user can change the next user's preferences, then they can start the keycapture utilities when the next user logs in using System Preferences, Accounts, and then "Startup Items". This also ensures that any changes any user makes to the settings of various applications will be restored to default for the next user, avoiding confusion or one user misconfiguring applications.

To ensure privacy and security, the old user home folder is moved out and a "clean" template is moved in.
To use this feature, all users must have the same home folder path. It assumes that the user information is obtained from Directory Services.... lots more details here...

Multiple home folders are created at idle times to speed up login
In order to speed up the process of logging in, ULabMin generates backup homefolders so that when someone logs in a backup home folder can be quickly moved into place, rather than forcing the user to wait for the home folder to be generated from scratch.

The more applications are deployed, the more preferences files will be created inside the user's home folder. The more preference files, the bigger the template home folder will be. In places where a lot of programs are available the template can grow to be hundreds of megabytes in size.

A Lost and Found is maintained for users so that if they login later in the day, they can access any old files they had saved that day.
Because home folders are managed, ULabMin generates a Lost and Found folder that stores all of a particular user's files in it, so that they can be retrieved when the user logs in later in the day. The Lost and Found folder is also owned by the user that it was created for, so no other users can even see it, let alone modify the original creator's files.

The Lost and Found is available on the Desktop when the user logs in. It includes everything in the home folder originally except the Library folder, which is deleted to save space. Lost and found folders are stored in /Library/ULabMin/Private/lostandfound (or whatever the path is). When a user logs in, the login script checks to see if the user has a folder in that location. If they do, the folder is moved to the user's desktop. Old home folders are always moved into the Lost and Found.

Flushes the lookupd cache

Logout application that shows a timer
Because a lot of maintenance is done when a user logs out, ULabMin includes a logout application. This application displays a prompt with a countdown timer until it automatically selects "Log Out" and invokes the logout scripts. By placing an alias to this application on users' Desktops and/or using FruitMenu to change the Log Out item in the Apple Menu to run the application, you can guarantee that maintenance is always run when someone logs out.

Modified loginwindow with custom lab graphic

The loginwindow NIB has been modified. It is now full-screen. There's a place for a custom logo at the top of the loginwindow, a small icon to indicate whether or not the last maintenance run was successful, and custom text next to the small icon to let you know at a glance if there was an error, what the maintenance schedule is, and the last date that maintenance successfully completed.

Security

Checks to make sure OFPW is set

Looks for world writable files

Optional extra network security (custom firewall and tcp-wrapper settings)

Phone home tracker script, which can help you track stolen computers