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Macintosh Security Basics - Presentation Notes

Guest

Same idea with the Guest account, except that you can’t change the account name or set a password.

 
 


On to the Files

So far:

• Users have been created
• Groups have been created
• Guest is enabled, maybe

Now, we decide which files/folders to share with them.
 
Ok, so now you’ve defined some users, made a decision about Guest access, and defined which users belong to groups, if any. (Groups are used when you want to allow more than one user specific access to a folder or file, but not guests. This will make more sense later.)

Now we’ll move on to actually specifying the folders and files to share.


Example

What you want:

• One folder each with full privs for joeschmoe and joeblow.
• One folder that the two of them can only read from.
• One folder which anyone can write to, but not see what’s inside (a “dropbox”).
• A folder that anyone, including Guests, can download from..
 
Let’s say you have two users, joeschmoe and joeblow, and you want each of them to have a folder to use for downloading and uploading homework files.

You also want to make a folder that both of them can download from, but not change or upload to (maybe you have stuff you want to show them, but you don’t want them to be able to delete or mess up the files in that folder).

You also want to have a folder which anyone can write to, but not read from (a “dropbox”).

Lastly, you want to make a folder that anyone, including Guests, can download from, but not change the contents of (for sharing your legally-obtained MP3s).


We can do this.

First, make folders to represent this scenario. (CMD-n).

I might put all of these in a folder called “Shares.” Do whatever’s easiest for your organizational preferences.


Set the permissions...

Next, set appropriate permissions for each of the folders you want to share.

• Click on folder icon, select “Get Info” from File menu (or hit CMD-i), and select the “Sharing...” option from the popup menu.
• Or, control-click (or right click, if you have a second mouse button mapped properly) on the folder icon and select “Sharing.”
 


Control-click…

 


Specify Access for each Joe

Now, in the Info -> Sharing window for Joe Schmoe’s folder, we can specify the level of access for this item. Once you check the “Share this item” box, the privilege options below will become available. Obviously, we’d then do the same for Joe Blow’s folder.
 

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