MacOS – Admin rights for a standard user in OS X

macospermission

I want to create a user with OS X restrictions (Parental Control), which would still be allowed to install applications in the standard Applications folder using its password.

Is it possible? How should I do it?

Best Answer

I wouldn't recommend that you try to put in such a scheme. If you wish to use restrictions, you would generally not want the restricted user to install any application either (for security reasons).

Normally, a non-admin user cannot install applications in the system applications folder at /Applications since it's owned by user root and group admin. However, a non-admin user can install applications under the home directories (~/Applications), but those applications would be available only to that specific user (certain applications that are designed to be in /Applications or those using installer packages to write into system locations may not work well in such a case).

If you wish to allow a non-admin user to install applications into /Applications, then you can add that user to the admin group from Terminal.app (instead of going to System Preferences and allowing the user to be an administrator). Keep in mind that a user who can install applications into /Applications can also remove applications from there (intentionally or unintentionally).

Related Solutions

Limiting a standard user to use 50 GB of the hard drive

This should work for you:

Create a root shell session in Terminal with sudo -s, providing your admin password when asked.
Create an empty quota options file with touch /.quota.ops.user
Run quotacheck -a to generate a list of drive space used by user
Run repquota -a to list the drive space used by each user
Enable quotas by typing quotaon / (You can turn them off again with quotaoff / )
Set quota limits for a given use by typing edquota -u username
This will put you in a vi editing session, where you can set both hard and soft limits on drive space and inodes (files).
Note: vi is a text editor and can be a bit of a handful to use if you're not used to it, try searching for a basic tutorial on the net if you've never used it before.

You'll get a file that looks like this:

Quotas for user fakeuser:
/: 1K blocks in use: 14968, limits (soft = 0, hard = 0)
        inodes in use: 224, limits (soft = 0, hard = 0)

The soft limit can be exceeded for one file, allowing users to save a file which puts them over their limit but not allow them to save any more until they get back under their limit. Hard limits cannot be exceeded though.

MacOS – OS X change Admin user to Standard user with command line

Just fought this battle, you can drop the dscl line and use the following;

Type the command :

sudo dseditgroup -o edit -d UserName -t user admin

Where UserName is their actual AD username.

Berry

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Limiting a standard user to use 50 GB of the hard drive

MacOS – OS X change Admin user to Standard user with command line

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