UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hello everyone.

i work in a school and i ran into an application today that is a real pickle. i know how to make it work, but i would need to script it. The way to make it work would be to have a script check each local user profile on login, see if the directory already exists, do nothing if it does, and copy it from a pre-determined location if it doesn't.

for what it's worth, i'm sorry for asking such a basic question, but my district doesn't have the resources to pay a contractor to script this, and i don't know scripting :-(

thanks for reading!

--js

On login, it seems a bit late to check the home dir! If you have a user id and want to clone the home dir, that should be done when the login is created, unless you have a remote global id/password scheme like nispasswd/yppasswd. Here is a simple script, jut off the cuff, to clone a template subtreee I call ~template for one user id and that id's base group:

Code:

#!/usr/bin/ksh
 
if [ $# != 2 ]
then
 echo "
Usage: ${0##*/} user_id group
" >&2
 exit 1
fi
 
zd=$( eval echo '~'"$1" )
 
if [ ! -d "$zd" ]
then
 cp -r ~template "$zd"
 chown -R "$1" "$zd"
 chgrp -R "$2" "$zd"
fi

Thanks, DGPickett for your response. It would appear that I didn't properly explain what was wrong, though. i'll explain specifically what's wrong below:

*application for music (school play is coming up - guys and dolls) installs and runs with no problem for the user that installed it.
*local administrator (me) installs it in midi lab, and when any OTHER user tries to launch app, it fails.
*after speaking to their tech support, it turns out that it fails because, on install, the installer creates a directory called RMS in Application Support in the user's LOCAL profile, instead of in a universally accessible place. the support people tell me that to make it work, the RMS directory needs to be in EACH user's local home (~/Library/Application Support/RMS).
*my conclusion, after testing several different solutions, is that the ideal way to solve this problem (aside from scrapping the software entirely) is to copy the master RMS folder to each user's local profile on login, if it isn't there already.

Does that make more sense?

Find the one RMS folder and run sudo chmod 777 on it to make it available to everyone, then create aliases or symbolic links in each users home directory to point to the original folder (that they will now have rights to).. That could work as a simple solution..

you could use

Code:

 ln -s /path to RMS folder/RMS ~/Library/Application\ Support/RMS

to link or create an alias to the original folder.

Good idea, but I tried that yesterday, and it didn't work. it doesn't want a link. when it sees the link, it errors. having the actual directory there was the only thing that worked.

OK, then try this (you will need to specify the full path to the folder you wish to copy after the RMS_LOCATION= (between the quotes):

Code:

#!/bin/bash
RMS_LOCATION="/path/toRMS/"
DIR="~/Library/Application Support/RMS"
if [ -d $DIR ]; then
echo ""
else
cp -R $RMS_LOCATION $DIR
fi
exit 0

---------- Post updated at 01:59 PM ---------- Previous update was at 01:53 PM ----------

By the way, the script would need to be run as the user who wishes to have the specified folder added to their respective home directory/Library/Application\ Support/, because the ~ symbol means the home directory path of the current user.. You could simply run my script as the logged in user who needs access to the folder.. you would have to run sudo chmod +x thescriptIgaveyou.sh to make it executable.. Mind you if you are trying to make this a loginhook ( I assume your using Mac because of the Application Support folder) you may have problems because loginhooks run with root privileges.. I suggest to make it executable and just have the user run it if they encounter a problem with RMS and need the folder copied.. You also need to make sure they have the proper permissions for the folder so you could always chmod 777 the folder to make sure it is accessible.

Maybe it needs the top directory, but you can sym-link any content! Or, bettter, you need to install it as a sym-link higher, so it is already traversed.

You could mount it, too, I guess! Might need NFS or the like.

I don't like to leave 777 folders around, as carefree people leave their dodo in my folders and I have a hard time removing it, not usually being root.