Disable screensaver password

[reebzor]

So I am a network administrator and an mac user. No one else is my IT dept knows anything about macs so I have been given the responsibility of managing our 5 or so Mac's in the company. I've been able to figure everything out fine, but I have one user that insists on turning on the screensaver password on his computer. Now on windows, you can unlock a computer using an administrator account but on mac this is not the case. I want to disable the option for the screensaver password but I do not know how. The user is a local administrator on the computer because that is needed for a few things but he is making it impossible for me to work on his computer because of the password.

Also, I've tried telling him not to enable it but he seems to not care what I think. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

 

[miles01110]

Unless you know the local administrator password to unlock the screensaver and create another administrator account that you can get into, you're out of luck.

If you can get in, turning off the password prompt from screensaver is in System Preferences -> Security -> General

Honestly it sounds like this employee just needs to be put in his place. If its your company policy to allow you, the network administrator, access to his machine for company business then he should be reminded of the policy.

 

[reebzor]

oh so I can use another admin account to unlock it? I tried it last time and it didnt work. The user is using a network account to log in, does it matter if I use my network account (domain admin) or should I use the local administrator account I created when I set the machine up?

 

[MrSkribbles]

It's always a good idea to have the screensaver password turned on. It's also a better idea have users run as standard users and not as admins. Let them know this, so when they get hacked you can say "I told you so". Anyway, on to the answer to your question which has been pilfered from: http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20101103055948533

Mac OS X 10.6 tightened security and now one administrator user cannot unlock the screensaver of another admin user. However, many IT professionals need to be able to grant their users admin access to their Macs while still being able to effectively administer the machine in their absence.

Visiting a users machine to resolve a help desk ticket is frustrating if that users screen is locked and the user has left for the day, is out to lunch, in a meeting, etc.

To enable an admin to unlock another admins screensaver you simply edit a file on the machine, edit the file: /etc/pam.d/screensaver, changing

account required pam_group.so no_warn group=admin,wheel fail_safe
to
account sufficient pam_group.so no_warn group=admin,wheel fail_safe

You'll need to use a text editor capable of modifying and saving system files; e.g. any CLI editor used with sudo, or a GUI editor like TextWrangler if done in advance. It is not necessary to log out or restart. In fact if you visit a machine that is locked in this way and have SSH access to it you can modify this file and then unlock the screensaver using your admin account.