sendLogon.app and installer

Well, after much troubles over getting NHR to also run sendLogon on startup, I decided to just make an application which ran the sendLogon script:

/usr/bin/sendLogon 145.xxx.xxx.xxx 5438 $(logname)

1. I simply made it in Automator:
1. 
2. Next I made an installation package to install it along with the sendLogon command program

I used Apple Remote Desktop's "Task Server" to install it on all managed machines. And finally I used Workgroup Manager to have it as a Login Item on the managed machines.

I think it works out better this way, as there is a little bit more control over it.

sendLogon and NHR for OS X 10.7

So, I'm just setting up some new machines with OS X 10.7.4 installed. I tried to install the NHR and sendlogon scripts which I implemented here, but looking into it, it doesn't seem to work.

The NHR side which redirects folders from the networked home drive to a local folder works beautifully, but when I browse the internet, it doesn't let me on sites which i am authorised to go on? So, to conclude, the LIsendLogon.hook isn't running properly.

The one thing I wanted to happen was to get the loginhook to run a script which in turn ran a sendLogon script and the NHR script. But it was an 'either/or' situation. I could never have both scripts running no mater how hard I tried.

After trying many different things, I ended by just giving up and putting the lines for sendLogon into the LIclean.hook script at the bottom. Very frustrating.

I did find an interesting and useful article on running a centralised login script here.

I also found a nice little course on the subject of scripting which I found very useful here and another here

OS X multiple login scripts - sendlogon and NHR

So, after having NHR running for quite a while, it looks like we also need to have sendlogon running at login. This isn't the first time I've had to have multiple login scripts. I remember doing this for BootPicker back when it wasn't included in the operating system.

So to do this I will use the system already in place thanks to NHR. At the moment, at login, the file /etc/login.hook runs. This runs any scripts within the /etc/hooks folder which begin with "Li". The same thing happens for logout but with any files beginning with "Lo". So, all I have to do is to rename the "login.sh" script something like "Lisendlogon.hook" and it will run at login.

Now, this "lisendlogon.hook" script simply contains the command to run the "sendlogon" program plus the right syntax to put after it. i.e. the server and the current users credentials. This is how it looks:

#!/bin/tcsh

/usr/bin/sendLogon dns.name.of.server.com 3898 $1

The sendLogon is in the /usr/bin folder, as this is where their tutorial says it should be.


After testing this, I need to make an install pkg file to run from the task server. I like using IceBerg.


So, here's some screenshots from it:

Iceberg - fix NHR and sendlogon settings page

postflight installation scripts.

writeloginhook.sh contains:

#!/bin/tcsh

sudo defaults write com.apple.loginwindow LoginHook /etc/login.hook

which tells the operating system to run /etc/login.hook at login. 

iceberg - files section. Later found the default destination needs to be "/"

I got slightly confused as to which folder to make the default destination?

I'll test it out on a computer suite machine to see if it works.

After a little testing, it looks like it didn't put sendLogon into /usr/bin! After trying a few things it turns out it was down to the "Default Destination". After setting this as "/" it worked. It looks like this is basically the folder which all installation folders have in common.

Iceberg - files section with the correct "default destination" as the lowest common folder.

Tested and works fine.

Cheers