Allowing Non-Admin users to add printers OS X clients

Problem: I need to allow non-administrator users add printers to Mac OS X.

Solution:

Add the GeneratedUID from the everyone group (ABCDEFAB-CDEF-ABCD-EFAB-CDEF0000000C) to the NestedGroups attribute of the _lpadmin group.

dscl . -append /Groups/_lpadmin NestedGroups ABCDEFAB-CDEF-ABCD-EFAB-CDEF0000000C 

References:

• dscl Manual

Find the console user on OS X

I do allot of OS X packaging, and I one thing that I have been looking for is a way to identify the current user logged into the console (The GUI). I found the answer in a configuration files for SleepWatcher. "SleepWatcher ...is a command line tool (daemon) for Mac OS X that monitors sleep, wakeup and idleness of a Mac."

echo 'show State:/Users/ConsoleUser' | scutil | awk '/kCGSSessionUserNameKey/ { print $3 }'

echo 'show State:/Users/ConsoleUser' -- Echo a command to scutil
scutil -- Take piped input from echo above.
awk '/kCGSSessionUserNameKey/ { print $3 }' -- Find the line kCGSSessionUserNameKey and print 3rd item (The Username).
scutil -- Manage system configuration parameters. You can find the scutil man page here

Add second shortname to OD Users

Micah Baker, the other day asked me about adding a secondary shortname to OD users.

So how do you add a secondary short name? We could use WorkGroup Manger, but I like the command line and automation.
So I use dscl the command line directory services utility. See the dscl man page here

dscl -u (OD-DIR-ADMIN) -P (PASSWORD) /LDAPv3/(ODMASTER-DN) -append Users/(SHORTNAME) uid (SHORTNAME TO ADD)

Micah had first_last as the username, and wanted to add first.last to all his users.
So through a script together.

#!/bin/bash -
# Eden Nelson 3/12/08
# add shortname

#Please set these vars!!!
# OD Master DNS
ODMASTER=
# OD Dir Admin
ODADMIN=
# OD Dir Admin Pass
ODPASS=
#Temp file where usernames are kept
TEMPFILE=/tmp/default.tmp
#Sleep between operations, keep the script from hammering the ODM
SLEEP=3

## ##
# Script Starts Here #
## ##

trap "{ rm -f $TEMPFILE ;}" EXIT SIGINT SIGTERM

dscl /LDAPv3/"$ODMASTER" -list Users > "$TEMPFILE"

cat "$TEMPFILE" | \
while read USERNAME
do

FIRSTNAME=`echo $USERNAME | cut -d'_' -f 1`
LASTNAME=`echo $USERNAME | cut -d'_' -f 2`

dscl -u "$ODADMIN" -P "$ODPASS" /LDAPv3/"$ODMASTER" -append Users/"$USERNAME" uid "$FIRSTNAME"."$LASTNAME"

sleep "$SLEEP"

done

exit 0