Lab Environment: Mainly stopping installs (if possible)

[Lambec]

Hi. I'm looking for some guidance or pointers on what to research.

I run a lab type environment at a library. I'm upgrading all my Macs to 10.8.2 (finally).

If possible, what I'd like to do is stop users from install/running software that isn't already included on the image.

I've already utilized the gatekeeper native to 10.8.2 and restricted it to App Store only, but this still allows users to install software. On top of that I've found alternative ways to get past this. An example would be Cyberduck. As a normal user on the machine I can download Cyberduck and launch it because it's not even a .dmg install, so gatekeeper doesn't even seem to check this because it's not being installed into any directory.

So I'm curious if there's some option(s) for 10.8.2 where I can take a more heavy handed approach and stop the downloading/running of unauthorized software.

Thanks.

 

[maflynn]

Can you set up an account as a standard user and use parental controls?

 

[Lambec]

I thought of that. My environment is the users are students and so it's basically an unique LDAP connection per student.

So, I'm not quite sure if that could be done. The LDAP accounts are housed on a unix server elsewhere, so really it's just passing authentication credentials through the client, and once it verifies then it creates a local profile.

If there was a way to use parental controls as a template upon a newly created account, that could be a path worth investigating.