What Is Entman

What is Entman?

Entman is a collection of scripts, modifications, tools, graphics and more that work with Radmind to automate maintenance and reduce the need for complex Radmind overloads.  For example, Radmind will manage a computer hard disk, but it will not rename the ByHosts preference files to match a specific machine's needs.

It is written and used by the University of Utah's Student Computing Labs for their student, staff, faculty and special purpose Mac OS X computers. Many other institutions use parts of it, and many institutions have adopted the techniques pioneered by ULabMin, the first version of Entman. 

These scripts and modifications perform maintenance tasks such as automating regular hard disk updates and cleanup using the radmind command line tools and the iHook application. The scripts allow administrators to easily run radmind by double clicking an icon, logging in as a specific user, remotely using Apple Remote Desktop, Timbuktu, or ssh, and automating radmind using cron or launchd. The scripts keep logs and report the status to a database and display it on the loginwindow and on the menubar.

The scripts manage user home folders so that each user will have a "clean" home folder at login, configured exactly how the admin wants it. This ensures a secure and working home folder for each user. In addition to this, a lost and found is managed so that users can still access old files from previous sessions.  For staff users, some preferences are even remembered.

The scripts also control many other customizations and issues, including self security audits, managing printer settings, and controlling display resolution.

To understand how Entman works, you must understand what it is used on. These scripts and modifications are used on authenticated workstations, autologin kiosks, authenticated kiosks, staff computers, presentation computers (that run PowerPoint over and over), firewire drives used for running ASR and other admin utilities, and even a few simple servers that run things like KeyShadow.

The modified login window, showing a custom lab logo and the maintenance status indicator.

Maintenance in action. This custom maintenance window is placed over the top of the login window, preventing users from cancelling maintenance.

An example of what a managed Desktop might look like just after the user logs in. The maintenance indicator is located in the right of the Menu Bar.

Two kiosks. Finder and the Dock are both disabled; Safari functions as the Finder replacement.

A wall-mounted LCD displaying the slideshow playing on a presentation server.

The slideshow running on a behind-the-counter monitor. The presentation server runs PowerPoint slide shows.

The presentation server itself. This was an old lab machine that was reclassified as a presentation server when it was replaced. All it does now is run the same PowerPoint presentation over and over, and allow staff to upload updates to the presentation.