Chris McCafferty

This table works out the syslog priority (PRI) field for all facilities and severity according to RFC 3164.

			Severity
			0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
Facility	kernel	0	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
	user	1	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15
	mail	2	16	17	18	19	20	21	22	23
	system	3	24	25	26	27	28	29	30	31
	security	4	32	33	34	35	36	37	38	39
	syslog	5	40	41	42	43	44	45	46	47
	lpd	6	48	49	50	51	52	53	54	55
	nntp	7	56	57	58	59	60	61	62	63
	uucp	8	64	65	66	67	68	69	70	71
	time	9	72	73	74	75	76	77	78	79
	security	10	80	81	82	83	84	85	86	87
	ftpd	11	88	89	90	91	92	93	94	95
	ntpd	12	96	97	98	99	100	101	102	103
	logaudit	13	104	105	106	107	108	109	110	111
	logalert	14	112	113	114	115	116	117	118	119
	clock	15	120	121	122	123	124	125	126	127
	local0	16	128	129	130	131	132	133	134	135
	local1	17	136	137	138	139	140	141	142	143
	local2	18	144	145	146	147	148	149	150	151
	local3	19	152	153	154	155	156	157	158	159
	local4	20	160	161	162	163	164	165	166	167
	local5	21	168	169	170	171	172	173	174	175
	local6	22	176	177	178	179	180	181	182	183
	local7	23	184	185	186	187	188	189	190	191

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

Watch the screencast.

Before You Begin

There are some things one must understand about Mac OS X login scripts before you can begin:

• Apple refers to them as login- and logout- “hooks”.
• They run as root so you need to su as the user to take actions as the user.
• You must activate them with the defaults command or use Workgroup Manager in Open Directory.

Creating a Login Script

You can technically save your scripts anywhere on the filesystem, but /usr/local/bin makes a lot of sense for various reasons.
So, create a file there and mark it executable:

sudo touch /usr/local/bin/login
sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/login

Configuring Login Script Actions

Open the login script in your favorite editor:

sudo vi /usr/local/bin/login

Inside the script, you can do things as root or as the user as shown in this sample batch script:

#!/bin/bash

##
# Mac login script
##

# As root, create a directory named "/foo"
mkdir /foo

# As root, set or enforce system settings
defaults write ... 

# As the user, create a directory named "~/foo"
su - $1 -c "/bin/mkdir -p ~/foo"

# As the user, set or enforce user settings
su - $1 -c "/usr/bin/defaults write ..."

The username is passed to the script as the one (and only) argument. In bash, you can use the $1 variable to access the username.

Activating a Login Script

Run this to activate the script:

sudo defaults write com.apple.loginwindow LoginHook /usr/local/bin/login

Logout Scripts

Configure a logout script by following the instructions above then activate it as follows:

sudo defaults write com.apple.loginwindow LogoutHook /usr/local/bin/logout

This content is published under the Attribution 3.0 Unported license.

This sample WMI VBScript code demonstrates how to use net use instead of pinging to decrease script execution time and increase accuracy when run against multiple computers. This particular script lists the currently logged-on user on each computer in the OU.

On Error Resume Next

Set objOU    = GetObject("LDAP://OU=Accounting,dc=example,dc=com")
objOU.Filter = Array("Computer")

For Each objComputer in objOU
    strComputer = objComputer.CN

    Wscript.StdOut.Write strComputer

    Set objShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
    strCommand   = "net use \\" & strComputer
    Return       = objShell.Run(strCommand,0,True)
    If Return = 0 Then

        ' Insert your code here

        On Error Resume Next

        Const wbemFlagReturnImmediately =  &h10
        Const wbemFlagForwardOnly =  &h20

        Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:\\" & strComputer & "\root\CIMV2")
        Set colItems = objWMIService.ExecQuery("SELECT * FROM Win32_ComputerSystem", "WQL", _
        wbemFlagReturnImmediately + wbemFlagForwardOnly)

        For Each objItem In colItems
            WScript.StdOut.WriteLine vbTab & objItem.UserName
        Next

        ' End

    Else
        Wscript.StdOut.WriteLine vbTab & "NETWORK ERROR"
    End If

Next

This content is published under the Attribution 3.0 Unported license.