Re: De-personalizing 10.5

Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2007 12:33:09 -0400
From: StargateSG1 <email@hidden>
Subject: De-personalizing 10.5

How can we de-personalize a Leopard install, since the NetInfo method
no longer applies? (ie, the way we did it under 10.4 and earlier won't
work).

Goal is to setup a new machine and then strip out all personalization
and user info to return it to "first boot" status.

I routinely rebuilt machines and installed software and applied
updates and then removed the local.nidb folder and the individual user
folders alone with /var/db/.AppleSetupDone and the machine was
basically returned to first boot.

Any ideas? I've not found a KB article on it yet.

TIA,
Doug

I was trying to do this myself this weekend. I installed the bare minimum from the DVD, restarted into target disk mode, imaged using Disk Utility to a disk image, disconnected the target disk, restarted again, went through Setup Assistant (aka MacBuddy), then restarted into target disk mode again.

I then mounted the clean (unbooted) disk image and used FileMerge (part of the Xcode tools) to compare the two file systems. I made the following list to return the disk back to it's pre-personalized state.

HOWEVER, the system wouldn't boot without copying the 'private/var/db/dslocal/' and 'private/etc/authorization' files back from the clean system.

These paths are relative to to /Volumes/targetdisknamehere I won't be held responsible if you use this info and hose your system.

- Peter

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.fseventsd/

.hotfiles.btree

.Spotlight-V100/

home/

Library/Caches/*

Library/ColorSync/Profiles/Displays/*

Library/Keychains/*

Library/Logs/*

Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist

Library/Preferences/*

Library/Receipts/.SetupRegComplete

net/

private/etc/apache2/users/*

private/etc/authorization

private/etc/hostconfig

private/etc/kcpassword

private/etc/krb5.keytab

private/etc/memberd.conf

private/etc/ntp.conf

private/tmp/*

private/var/db/.AppleSetupDone

private/var/db/.AutoBindDone

private/var/db/.com.apple.iokit.graphics

private/var/db/BootCache.playlist

private/var/db/CodeEquivalenceDatabase

private/var/db/crls/*

private/var/db/dhcpclient/

private/var/db/DirectoryService/

private/var/db/dslocal/

private/var/db/InstallResults.plist

private/var/db/krb5kdc/

private/var/db/ntp.drift

private/var/db/PanicReporter/

private/var/db/shadow/

private/var/db/statd.status

private/var/db/SystemEntropyCache

private/var/db/volinfo.database

private/var/folders/*

private/var/log/alf.log

private/var/log/asl.db

private/var/log/cups/*

private/var/log/fsck_hfs.log

private/var/log/krb5kdc/

private/var/log/mb.log

private/var/log/system.log

private/var/log/windowserver.log

private/var/root/.CFUserTextEncoding

private/var/root/Library/Autosave Information/

private/var/root/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist

private/var/root/Library/Preferences/*

private/var/run/*

private/var/samba/shares/*

private/var/samba/winbindd_privileged/*

private/var/samba/winbindd_public/*

private/var/spool/cups/cache/*

private/var/tmp/*

private/var/vm/*

System/Library/Caches/*

System/Library/CoreServices/.disk_label

System/Library/CoreServices/.disk_label.contentDetails

System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.kdcmond.plist

System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.UpdateSettings.plist

System/Library/StartupItems/AutoBind/

Users/*

Volumes/*

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/bin/mkdir -p Users/Shared

/bin/chmod 777 Users/Shared

/bin/chmod +t Users/Shared

/usr/bin/sudo /usr/sbin/chown 501:staff Users/Shared

---