Mac OS in a Lab

jmu1 wishes to get to the core of the following issue: "I run a medium sized lab of Mac OS 8.6/9.x machines. They all have (shudder) FoolProof as an attempt of keeping the systems usable. Unfortunatly, it is quite easy to bypass the software, or even to remove it using AppleScript, etc. What I want to know is, what is a usable solution for securing a lab of Macs?"

Comments

Yuppy pants

[Graymalkin]

There's tons of different solutions that have been outlined here, it seems from your comments you dismiss them because they "encumber" your students and make them feel bad and icky. It is not their network nor are the computers theirs, they don't have rights to them. Lab computers belong to whoever owns them and not whatever student sits down in front of them. If you're worried about them feeling encumbered by your security you're not doing your job properly.

You make the systems secure so no one can easily screw them up preventing other students from using them. There's a lot of jackasses that love to break systems or "customize" them preventing anyone else from getting any use out of them at all. There's also the people who feel that because a school has a particular amount of bandwidth, they ought to be able to monopolize it to download ripped DVDs and MP3s. You secure your systems and your network so everyone can use it because it is a shared resource. You aren't supposed to leave systems wide open for them to be abused.

Let people do what they need to do with as little hassle as possible. Don't allow people to abuse your systems though. I've managed a Mac lab before and the previous admin decided not to lock down any of the systems. The computers crashed constantly and hardly anyone could get on the web. I spent weeks getting Carracho servers, SETI@Home clients, and copies of Starcraft off all the systems. After the systems were locked down we didn't have any problems. If people want to play Starcraft or run a Carracho server (which was probably used to ship off copies of software we had) they can do it at home. They don't need to use your lab for it unless you specifically allow them to.