Privacy Services Manager Cookbook

Configures Mac OS X Accessibility, Calendar, Contacts, iCloud, Location Services and Reminders using
University of Utah, Marriott Library, Apple Support's
privacy_services_manager.

Requirements

• Chef 11 or higher

Platforms

• Mac OS X - Mountain Lion (10.8) or higher

Usage

This cookbook wraps University of Utah, Marriott Library, Apple Support's
privacy_services_manager.

Please read their documentation thoroughly before using this cookbook.

Actions

There are four actions available:

• add Creates an entry for the specified application and enable the application for the service.
• enable Effectively just calls add, ensuring that the application has been added and enabled.
• remove Deletes the application's entry within the service. There will no longer be a record of that application therein.
• disable Leaves the application's record intact, but will disallow the application from utilizing the given service.

Attributes

• services There are six services that can be modified:
  • accessibility deals with behind-the-scenes systems that Apple believes require extra privileges to enable. Applications that interface with your computer experience, such as BetterSnapTool or the Steam in-game overlay, require access through this service. These privileges must be granted by a privileged user via sudo.
  • calendar is the service responsible for allowing applications to inject events into your calendar. This can be used to schedule recurring events, among other things.
  • contacts handles requests to access a user's address book. Many web browsers use this to store login information for various websites. This service is handled on a per-user basis, so any user has the ability to modify this service for themselves.
  • icloud manages access to a user's iCloud storage and settings. Examples would be any text editing application that is able to save to your iCloud, such as TextEdit or iA Writer. Because of the nature of this request (access to a user's personal files and settings).
  • location manages any application that desires to report on your physical location. Apple's own Maps application will request access to this, as well as web browsers once you visit a website that asks for your location (such as Google Maps).
  • reminders gives an application the ability to access your Reminders (which are usually handled manually via the Reminders application).
• template Modify privacy services for Apple's User Template. Only applies to certain services.
• forceroot Force the script to allow the creation/modification of the root user's own TCC database file.
• admin Enable administrative override to modify services for non-bundled applications.
• log_dest Redirect logging to the specified file.
• user Modify privacy services for a specific user named "user".
• language When changing privacy services for the Apple's User Template, modify the lang template. (Apple provides many User Template folder for different languages.)

Note the user, template, and language flags only affect those services which use the TCC system, i.e. contacts,
icloud, and accessibility. Providing these options for Location Services will have no effect.

Examples

Add an application to your own contacts service permissions

Most web browsers will ask you for permission to look at your contacts.

Let's add Safari as a trusted application for vagrant user:

privacy_services_manager 'grant safari access to contacts' do
  service 'contacts'
  user 'vagrant'
  applications ['com.apple.Safari']
  action :add
end

Add an application to the global location service permissions

For this part of the walkthrough we will be adding Apple's Maps application to
Location Services, but know that the process is the same for Accessibility.

First, because Location Services is handled a bit differently under-the-hood, we have to enable the system globally.

privacy_services_manager 'enable location services globally' do
  service 'location'
  action :enable
end

Now we will add Maps to the database. To do this, simply do:

privacy_services_manager 'add location services for maps' do
  service 'location'
  applications ['maps']
  action :add
end

Getting Help

• Ask specific questions on Stack Overflow.
• Report bugs and discuss potential features in Github issues.

Contributing

Please refer to CONTRIBUTING.

License

MIT - see the accompanying LICENSE
file for details.