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Incorporating User Images in Open Directory

Adding user images to Open Directory allows applications such as iChat, Mail, Address Book, and Login Window to display custom user images. Custom user images in Open Directory have many practical applications. This article will guide you though the process of creating images for use with Open Directory and through the process of adding these images into Open Directory.

One example of how custom user images in Open Directory add to the user experience is in a managed lab of computers in an elementary school. Younger children might not understand the process of logging into a computer with a user name and password, but they understand clicking an easily recognizable icon or a picture of their face to log in. Another example of how user photos in Open Directory add to the user experience is in a large Enterprise utilizing collaboration services such as email or Apple's iChat server. People using these services will see photos of the person they are communicating with via email or instant messaging.

Contents:

Guidelines for User Images
Installing User Images
Adding Images to User Records

Guidelines for User Images

User images must adhere to the following specifications to be compatible with Open Directory and Mail.

• The image must not exceed 64 pixels by 64 pixels in size. Ideally, the image should be exactly 64 pixels by 64 pixels because smaller images do not display correctly.

• The image must be a TIFF, and the file extension on the image must be .tiff.

• The name of the file must be the user’s short name in Open Directory. For example, jsmith.tiff is a correctly named file.

Tools such as Automator or shell scripting can reduce the overhead associated with adding large numbers of user images to Open Directory. For more information on creating a set of Automator actions to automate the image creation and installation process see Mac 101 - Lesson 3: Automator.

Installing User Images

It is highly recommended that you copy the user image file to /Network/Library/Images/People. For more information on setting up a Network Library see “Setting Up a Network Library.” If the folders Images and People do not exist, create them. After copying the image file to /Network/Library/Images/People, create a symbolic link to the image using the naming scheme of shortname@emaildomain.tiff. This symbolic link is required by Mail to associate an image with the given email address. For example, a correctly named symbolic link has the form jsmith@example.com.tiff. This must be a symbolic link not an alias. For more information about creating simlinks, see Mac OS X Man Pages. If the user has multiple email addresses, multiple symbolic links must be created for each email address.

Adding Images to User Records

The following steps outline the changes that must be made to each user's Open Directory record to associate an image with a given user:

1. Using Workgroup Manager, connect to the Open Directory Master for your network.

2. In the preferences for Workgroup Manager, select "Show 'All Records' tab and inspector" and click OK.

3. From the user account list, select the user whose custom image you want to add.

4. Click the Inspector tab to bring up the raw data that makes up the user record in Open Directory. Be careful when editing the data presented in the Inspector tab; changing the wrong data can result in user records becoming invalid.

5. Click the New Attribute button.

6. Type apple-user-picture in as the attribute name.

7. In the Text field, type in the path to the user image. All paths begin with /Network/Library/Images/People and end with the filename you edited above. The path for the example used above is /Network/Library/Images/People/jsmith.tiff.

8. Click OK, then click Save.

Clients must be bound to the Open Directory Master for user images to appear. Any client turned on before adding user images to Open Directory must be rebooted for the user images to become effective.

Users are able to change their own images in the Accounts pane of System Preferences, and change others' images using Address Book. These changes take precedence over the images defined by Open Directory and will not affect the image on the server.

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