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Use a master password on 'managed' machines
Authored by: babbage on Sep 10, '04 01:36:57AM

So then centralize account management on a central Linux machine running NIS and other Free software, and it can all be done for the price of one cheapo PC and a little bit of time with the documentation.

OSX Server is nice, but you can run most of the same services it provides on a Free (beer, speech) operating system for not a whole lot more effort.

Failing that, you can just designate one of your OSX Client machines as The Boss, and have it push around login information via something as simple as ssh logins and Bourne shell scripts using the ni* and dscl commands. If you want to be fancy you can do this with Apple Remote Desktop, but if your budget doesn't allow that then, again, all of these things can be done with Free software that came with your Mac.

Setting the master password this way -- for this reason -- seems like a disaster waiting to happen. What happens if the only person that knows the password forgets it, or leaves the job? Each machine will need to be rebuilt if it comes to that. It doesn't have to be that way...

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