Post-Install Script Woes using defaults write

[Steve Lopez]

Forgive me if this is elementary as I'm still new to all this, especially scripting, but I have searched and searched and tried multiple things with no luck.  I am trying to add some shell scripts to the end of an install using the "defaults write" command, however I am needing the script to write to the users Library/Preferences/ folder.  From what I can gather from searching, Munki runs all the installs and scripts as root, so if I just specify defaults write, it will go to the root users folders.  Is there any way to get a post-install script to write to the current users Library folder?  If anyone wants all the specifics, I can post it all, but didn't want to post unnecessary info if it's not needed.  Thanks again.

[Mr. Alan Siu]

I know of at least two ways to get the logged-in user:

Method #1:

actual_user=$(ls -l /dev/console | awk '{ print $3 }')

Method #2:

actual_user=$(defaults read /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow lastUserName)

And then do something like this:

defaults write /Users/"$actual_user"/Library/Preferences/com.BLAH.BLAH.plist BLAH -bool true

chown $actual_user /Library/Preferences/com.BLAH.BLAH.plist

Are you sure you have to write it directly to the user's preferences directory, and you can't use a profile instead?

https://github.com/timsutton/mcxToProfile

Alan Siu

Client Systems Analyst

St. Ignatius College Preparatory

On Wed, Dec 16, 2015 at 7:09 AM, Steve Lopez <lop...@gmail.com> wrote:

Forgive me if this is elementary as I'm still new to all this, especially scripting, but I have searched and searched and tried multiple things with no luck.  I am trying to add some shell scripts to the end of an install using the "defaults write" command, however I am needing the script to write to the users Library/Preferences/ folder.  From what I can gather from searching, Munki runs all the installs and scripts as root, so if I just specify defaults write, it will go to the root users folders.  Is there any way to get a post-install script to write to the current users Library folder?  If anyone wants all the specifics, I can post it all, but didn't want to post unnecessary info if it's not needed.  Thanks again.

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[Josh Malone]

Unless there is no logged-in user. What happens then? (Rhetorical question...)

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[Mr. Alan Siu]

Then you build in an if statement of some kind...

if [ ! -z "$actual_user" ]; then

    defaults write some stuff

else

    whatever else

fi

Alan Siu

Client Systems Analyst

St. Ignatius College Preparatory

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[Steve Lopez]

Thank you a thousand times Alan!  That worked!  I searched for hours yesterday trying to find something like this.  You are a godsend.

To answer your question, yes it does have to be written to the users preferences and not the global one in /Library.  I might be able to use a profile, but I haven't gotten into configuring our macs using profiles yet.  It's on my list of things to do.  Thanks again.

--Steve

[Mike Solin]

I’d use a configuration profile (and deploy that with Munki alongside the application), or use a shell script with outset (and deploy both the shell script and outset with Munki).  That way, the command that you’re running is applied to every user on the computer, regardless if they’re logged in at the time that Munki is running the installation.

Mike

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http://mikesolin.com

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