Airport Preferred Network

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Hello,

I'm brand new to the forum, so I hope this post is in the correct location.

I'm the Network Engineer for a school district. We are running AD and OD. I just implemented a district-wide wireless system using AeroHive AP's. Each AP is broadcasting 3 networks: Guest network, Faculty network, and iPad network. The guest network has no password, so the teacher Macbooks connect to it automatically. The guest network has no access to our servers, so the teachers cannot access email and PowerSchool.

I cannot figure out a way to give access for them to be able to change the preferred network list. I've also tried pushing out several plists using WorkGroup Manager. Nothing seems to work. The plist I thought would do it for me is "com.apple.airport.preferences". But no luck. I cannot find a user-specific airport pref plist.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Shane
 

chscag

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2017 27" iMac, 10.5" iPad Pro, iPhone 8, iPhone 11, iPhone 12 Mini, Numerous iPods, Monterey
That's the correct plist file as located here:

MacIntosh HD/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/

You may have to instruct them to go into System Preferences, Network, click on WiFi, then open the "Network Name" box and move the preferred network to the top of the list. After a reboot, that will also change the plist file.

If you have a plist editor (you can not use TextEdit) you might wish to check the keys to make certain the preferred network is showing up as "key 1" and the auto connect is set to "true".
 
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What if, instead of pushing out the plist with Workgroup Manger, I push it out to the machine itself with ARD?

As far as instructing them to set the preferred network themselves... I'd love to do that, but the pref is locked, as they are not admins. I cannot find out a way to unlock the pref in system prefs.

I'll play around with editing the pref a little bit to see if I can get that to work.

Thanks for your reply!
 

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