Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

DevNine · Nov 10, 2004, 09:12 PM

Fast User Switching : Can I switch without a password prompt ? I am the sole user of my powerbook

I have a number of accounts me, games ,test. I play games on the games account , test new software on the test account and use my account for everything else.The ME account is an admin and the rest are standard users. I have enabled the root account also.

Whenever I switch user I have to re enter the password even though I've already authenticated only a few mins before.Is there anyway to switch users and only authenticate initially and not every time ?

Thanks in advance

PurpleGiant · Nov 10, 2004, 09:27 PM

Nope. Although you can make any non-admin account have no password, that gets rid of the prompt

mikemako · Nov 10, 2004, 10:18 PM

but even if the account has NO password (like none of my computer's accounts) it still will always take you to that password prompt the 1st time you switch to that account (after a restart). I wish it didn't do that.. it doesn't make sense.

Brass · Nov 11, 2004, 12:11 AM

Originally posted by mikemako:
but even if the account has NO password (like none of my computer's accounts) it still will always take you to that password prompt the 1st time you switch to that account (after a restart). I wish it didn't do that.. it doesn't make sense.

I guess the different behaviour is something to do with the difference between logging in, and switching to an already logged in (but idle) account. The first time after a restart that you switch to a particular account, you have to log into that account. Once the account is already logged into, you can then switch to it without logging in all over again.

PurpleGiant · Nov 11, 2004, 12:38 AM

I have a computer setup with 5 accounts, 4 with no password, 1 admin. The no-password accounts never ask me for a password, not when logging in, or fast user switching. Not after a restart, not the first time, never. Lucky me

SimeyTheLimey · Dec 21, 2004, 05:03 PM

Mind if I bump this? It's close to my question, but not exact.

My problem.

Right now, I just have my mac set up with one account.

My 10 year old nephew is coming over for Christmas. He'll want to use the internet, but I don't want him changing settings on my mac (don't ask, it has happened). I'm thinking about setting up a second user, and I guess I will have to set up passwords, otherwise the little hellion will just switch users.

Here's my complication. I have a weekly backup schedule set up using carbon copy cloner and a second hard drive. Because you can't schedule a wakeup from sleep, and because I am not always around to wake the computer I have it set to boot up if it is off at a time just before the backup is scheduled. That way, when I am out of town I can turn the computer off, and let it do its thing.

First question.

Will that still work with passwords activated? I suspect it will just hang until someone enters the password (which defeats the point). Am I right to be pessimistic?

Second question:

Plan B is to create a user for Christmas and delete it and the password requirement afterwards. Are there any issues with restoring things back to where they are now -- i.e with one account and no login window?

C.J. Moof · Dec 21, 2004, 06:59 PM

CCC just appends the proper ditto line into /etc/crontab. If it's in crontab, it doesn't matter who's logged in to a GUI.

SimeyTheLimey · Dec 21, 2004, 07:18 PM

Originally posted by C.J. Moof:
CCC just appends the proper ditto line into /etc/crontab. If it's in crontab, it doesn't matter who's logged in to a GUI.

So do I understand correctly that the computer doesn't need to be logged on to a user to run CCC?

C.J. Moof · Dec 22, 2004, 11:33 AM

Right. Crontab events will happen as long as the machine is awake. It won't matter if there are 0 or 10 separate GUI accounts logged in at once.

When you schedule something with CCC, what you're really doing is using a pretty interface to write and schedule unix command line instructions. That unix command line will do it's thing when it's scheduled to, independent of what's going on in the GUI.

tooki · Dec 22, 2004, 02:00 PM

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
Because you can't schedule a wakeup from sleep, and because I am not always around to wake the computer I have it set to boot up if it is off at a time just before the backup is scheduled.

On recent Macs (from the past 2 years or so), you can in fact schedule wakeup from sleep.

tooki

SimeyTheLimey · Dec 22, 2004, 07:21 PM

Originally posted by tooki:
On recent Macs (from the past 2 years or so), you can in fact schedule wakeup from sleep.

tooki

I guess my quicksilver isn't recent enough, because it doesn't work for me. Schedule in the energy saver panel only has settings for start up or shut down. If there is another way, I'd like to know about it.

Brass · Dec 22, 2004, 07:37 PM

Originally posted by tooki:
On recent Macs (from the past 2 years or so), you can in fact schedule wakeup from sleep.

tooki

... and on really old Macs. Shame they dropped the ball on this in between, and have never really got it working across the board since.

tooki · Dec 22, 2004, 08:01 PM

Really old ones like what?

Until the Mac Portable, no Macs did sleep. Starting with the PCI Power Macs, some level of sleep was supported on desktop Macs, and it wasn't until the AGP Macs that deep sleep (comparable to the sleep that the Portable and all PowerBooks had had all along) came to the desktop.

Even so, only recent very hardware supports waking from sleep. All Apple hardware with "soft power" could startup automatically, but not all can wake from sleep.

tooki

Brass · Dec 22, 2004, 08:39 PM

Originally posted by tooki:
Really old ones like what?

Until the Mac Portable, no Macs did sleep. Starting with the PCI Power Macs, some level of sleep was supported on desktop Macs, and it wasn't until the AGP Macs that deep sleep (comparable to the sleep that the Portable and all PowerBooks had had all along) came to the desktop.

Even so, only recent very hardware supports waking from sleep. All Apple hardware with "soft power" could startup automatically, but not all can wake from sleep.

tooki

Sorry, when I said "really old", I should have been more specific. I didn't mean the ancient 80's Macs. I was referring to mid-90's Macs. I had an old 6400 desktop which could wake from sleep. In fact it could even start itself from powered-off as per energy-saver preferences. Can't do that with my current Mac. There is some 3rd party software that's meant to do it, but I've not tried it.

jac · 03:30 PM

Originally posted by tooki:
On recent Macs (from the past 2 years or so), you can in fact schedule wakeup from sleep.

tooki

How do you do that? Can't seem to find the settings on my brand new Power Mac.
Thanks!

f1000 · Dec 23, 2004, 10:27 AM

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
Here's my complication. I have a weekly backup schedule set up using carbon copy cloner and a second hard drive. Because you can't schedule a wakeup from sleep, and because I am not always around to wake the computer I have it set to boot up if it is off at a time just before the backup is scheduled. That way, when I am out of town I can turn the computer off, and let it do its thing.

First question.

Will that still work with passwords activated? I suspect it will just hang until someone enters the password (which defeats the point). Am I right to be pessimistic?

Make sure that second hard drive doesn't show up in the guest account, or else your little hellion could go to town on it. I suggest that you create a guest account with a Simple Finder.

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
Second question:

Plan B is to create a user for Christmas and delete it and the password requirement afterwards. Are there any issues with restoring things back to where they are now -- i.e with one account and no login window?

I've done it many times without any issues.

SimeyTheLimey · 11:06 AM

Originally posted by f1000:
Make sure that second hard drive doesn't show up in the guest account, or else your little hellion could go to town on it. I suggest that you create a guest account with a Simple Finder.

The problem was I wanted to add things to the dock (specifically Safari and I.E.) so that a P.C. user can find them. Simple Mode doesn't let you add things to the dock. You have to delve into the applications folder, which is less than intuitive to a PC user.

I did take the hard drives off the desktop, but I wish there was a way to take them and the submenus off of the finder without using the Simple Finder. Maybe if I take the disks off of the sidebar as well?

There really ought to be a way to simply shut things off (short of encryption, which is a bit extreme) or the overly simplified Simple Finder.

Or maybe I should just add aliases to the browsers to the desktop, so it looks like a PC. Then hide the dock altogether. Mmmm. Sneaky.

f1000 · Dec 23, 2004, 11:15 AM

How about going into the backup drive's Get Info window and making it No Access for the guest account under Ownership & Permissions?

waffffffle · Dec 23, 2004, 12:17 PM

Originally posted by Brass:
I was referring to mid-90's Macs. I had an old 6400 desktop which could wake from sleep. In fact it could even start itself from powered-off as per energy-saver preferences.

I have one of those. Great machine. I used to set it to turn on every day at 2:30 PM so that I could come home and have my computer ready for me, although I eventually just stopped turning it off. It had some awesome features that Apple didn't continue supporting like a front infrared remote control port so you can control the cd player with the Apple remote or any universal remote. It also had a speaker in the tower that would turn into a subwoofer when external speakers were plugged into the back but turn off completely (along with the external speakers) if you plugged headphones into the front. It also had volume controls on the front of the machine. Really cool stuff that Apple totally dropped the ball on.

SimeyTheLimey · Dec 23, 2004, 01:27 PM

Originally posted by f1000:
How about going into the backup drive's Get Info window and making it No Access for the guest account under Ownership & Permissions?

Thanks. I'll try that. That way if he does something evil on the main drive, I can just wipe and reclone back.

Krusty · Dec 23, 2004, 01:34 PM

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:

I did take the hard drives off the desktop, but I wish there was a way to take them and the submenus off of the finder without using the Simple Finder. Maybe if I take the disks off of the sidebar as well?

Have you thought about forcibly unmounting the external drive as a login item for the guest user account ? It can easily be done through AppleScript (I'll whip one up for you if your not in to AS). Of course, it would have to be re-mounted for your backups to proceed.

Also, if its just the settings you're worried about. 10.3 will allow you to restrict managed users to ONLY being able to change user specific preferences. Just go in to Sys Pref -> Accounts -><account name> -> Limitations -> choose "some limits" and UNcheck the box that says This User Can "Open all system preferences". This alone will keep the little guy from altering anything system wide that would affect your user too. You can also manually select each and every application that this kid can use (and not use) on this pane (um, Terminal is a good one to restrict

I've had as many as 4 accounts running (when I was sharing my main machine with roommates). Now I only have 2 users... one is a managed 'Guest User' account without password created specifically so that I can let people use my machine without worrying about it.

SimeyTheLimey · Dec 23, 2004, 03:15 PM

Originally posted by Krusty:
Have you thought about forcibly unmounting the external drive as a login item for the guest user account ? It can easily be done through AppleScript (I'll whip one up for you if your not in to AS). Of course, it would have to be re-mounted for your backups to proceed.

Also, if its just the settings you're worried about. 10.3 will allow you to restrict managed users to ONLY being able to change user specific preferences. Just go in to Sys Pref -> Accounts -><account name> -> Limitations -> choose "some limits" and UNcheck the box that says This User Can "Open all system preferences". This alone will keep the little guy from altering anything system wide that would affect your user too. You can also manually select each and every application that this kid can use (and not use) on this pane (um, Terminal is a good one to restrict I've had as many as 4 accounts running (when I was sharing my main machine with roommates). Now I only have 2 users... one is a managed 'Guest User' account without password created specifically so that I can let people use my machine without worrying about it.

Don't worry about the applescript, but thank you. I think I have given an exaggerated impression about my nephew. He's not malicious, just a bit casual with other people's computers. I just wanted to throw a couple of barriers in the way just in case he does something silly. If I seriously thought he was going to damage anything, I'd just ban him from using it.