I originally posted this at http://www.318.com/TechJournal
If you’re familiar with Managed Preferences in Tiger then you’re basically already familiar with Managed Preferences in Leopard Server. But there are some great new features that Apple has provided us with by popular demand. These include the following:
Applications
There are now more features to the Applications Managed Preference. You can allow or disallow applications by selecting them individually or a folder. This means that you can allow access to applications located in the /Applications folder but disallow all applications located in the /Applications/Utilities folder. There are also now controls for allowing specific widgets and disabling Front Row.
Finder
There are new options to limit users from doing tasks when in the Finder such as Ejecting a disk, connecting to servers, rebooting and burning disks.
Login
You can now control the list of users that are displayed to a user during login times to show Mobile accounts and network users. You can show/hide the restart button, disable automatic logon, enable Fast User switching, set the local computer record name to the name of the computer on the server, enable guest access, control the inactive time to logout users and configure computer based Access Control Lists.
Mobility
Mobility now allows administrators to set an expiry for a users home folder on the system they are logging into. This allows administrators to keep local desktop systems from getting polluted with hundreds of home folders without using custom scripts to do so. Administrators can also now force accounts on local systems to use FileVault with Mobility accounts to keep data on local systems as secure as possible and set quota’s for user home directories. Finally, it is also now possible to control the path that the user home folder is located on local desktops.
Network
Administrators can now Disable Internet Sharing, Airport and Bluetooth for client computers.
Parental Controls
Hide profanity in the dictionary, control access to web sites, set the amount of time per day that a computer is allowed to be used and set times when login is not allowed in this new Managed Preference.
Printing
Force users to put their user name, date and/or MAC address in a page that is sent with each print job.
System Preferences
Allow or deny access to each System Preference (including the new ones).
