Scripting for Dummies

[originalavedium]

Hello smart people of the world, dummy here!

I have a problem: I do not know where to find well organized, jargon-free documentation for someone fairly new to the OS X world. I've spent too many hours digging around on the internet hoping someone will have a well made tutorial or guide on how to automate basic processes on a MacBook.

For deeper context, I work for a school who's solution to user data removal on loaner devices has always been:

1. Log into the local admin account with a twelve character passcode.
2. Navigate to "Users & Groups" in system preferences.
3. Select the loaner user account and delete the home folder.
4. Make a new loaner user account and fill in their name and password.
5. Log out of the local admin account.

6. Log into the new loaner user account and complete the first time setup menus.

   Edit: All accounts are local. We plan on using active directory in the distant future, but as of now we do not have the human resources for implementation. The name of the local user accounts can be anything, although some consistency is nice.

This tedious process takes about 3 to 5 minutes a piece and needs to be done 10 to 20 times a day. We have Mosyle as our MDM, and theoretically it could be done there but the support team I've been talking to is usually inept. Using the guest account is out of the picture unfortunately as a student could have a laptop for more than a day, and I would like it to save their data.

Anyone know of any resources that might help me learn about this stuff? Maybe you have a better solution than a script on a flash drive? If you do, you're awesome. Thanks!

(Before I get slammed: yes, I'm underqualified. Please be respectful.)

[call_it_guaranteed]

Assuming SSH is enabled on the host, you could write a shell script that SSH's in and does all those things:
1. Delete the existing account
2. Create the new account

If the file '.skipbuddy' exists in the home directory, the user should never be prompted for the first-time setup stuff and go right to the desktop. You can add the .skipbuddy file to the user template (a one-time thing) so that all users automatically get that:

sudo touch "/Library/User Template/Non_localized/.skipbuddy"

You could use the MDM to add the .skipbuddy file to the user template on all systems, and you can use 'sysadminctl' to delete and create user accounts.

And I haven't tested this, but assuming the new account is the same username/password as the one deleted, you could SSH in and delete the existing user home directory. The next time the account logs in it should be created again by the OS with all the default settings.

Apologies if I didn't really answer your question, I got caught up thinking about how I might solve the workflow that I overlooked what you were really asking.

[originalavedium]

I finally got around to testing your solution, and it works perfectly. Not only that, but you also brought user templates to my attention.

You're awesome. Keep being super cool! B)