Fast User Switching, when enabled, allows users to leave one session open and hop to another user account. Great for training, testing and impressing friends (ok, so maybe it won’t impress your friends, but the thumb trick is getting old). To enable Fast User Switching, open the Accounts System Preference pane and click on Login Options. Then check the box for Show fast user switching menu. By default you’ll then see your user name in the menu bar. To do this from the command line: defaults write /Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences MultipleSessionEnabled -bool 'YES' To then disable it from the command line: defaults write /Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences MultipleSessionEnabled -bool 'NO' What’s really cool though, is…
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Scripting Fast User Switching
Fast User Switching allows a user of Mac OS X to switch accounts without logging out of the account they are currently in. There are a number of uses for this, from troubleshooting to managing workflow. The back end functionality comes from the CGSession binary located in /System/Library/CoreServices/Menu Extras/User.menu/Contents/Resources. There are a couple of options you can use with CGSession, -switchToUserID and -suspend. /System/Library/CoreServices/Menu Extras/User.menu/Contents/Resources/CGSession -switchToUserID 1022 If an account has no password then the switch should occur automatically. If there is password then you can simply bring up a login window using the following command (you can also switch to a given user id but it will ask you for…