Refresh User Account on each login

[phalewhale]

Hi everyone, I manage about 10 mac's here at work and would like to set up a user account for students. I am hoping that it is possible to setup a user account in such a way that any changes made whilst the student is logged in will be erased and refreshed for the next student.

I know that I can do this with the guest account but I've discovered that this is not suitable for what I need due to me not being able to create login items (specifically network volumes).

I've not done any scripting or anything like that but I was thinking of copying a script that would take a backup of the user's home directory upon login, then upon logout, the current home directory would be deleted and replaced with the backup that was taken earlier.

However, I'm guessing this will turn to poop if the student simply pulls the plug so I guess everything would have to be done upon login...

Does anyone have any ideas? I'm not a programmer by any stretch and I've never done any sort of scripting. Any help/advice would be appreciated.

 

[yellow]

There's third party apps that will help with that, and/or using Mac OS X server to netboot the Macs. Search for kiosk mac os x and that should turn up what you need (DeepFreeze is one, I believe)

 

[phalewhale]

Hi, thanks for the reply! Unfortunately I'm unable to use OS X Server since we already use Windows Deployment Servers. Our network is not subnet'd so this is likely to cause problems for the Windows Clients. Would prefer it though since it would save me from firewiring each machine individually! Only 8 though so it's not that bad.

In so far as 3rd part apps are concerned, the budget is so tight here it's not really an option for us.

I really don't mean to sound ungrateful for your suggestions by the way - the fact that you've taken the time to reply is much appreciated. Maybe I'm going to have to accept the students using a standard account...

 

[phalewhale]

Think I might have found an acceptable solution

I think what I'm going to do is simply remove the rights for the user to save stuff to certain folders including the desktop. The students use a single account so they have access to things like Photoshop etc. But, they end up saving their work to the desktop and others can easily see their work which is obviously not ideal.

It would be best if we had an OS X server set up but this is not going to happen anytime soon - so this will do for now I think - hope!