/System/Library/Coreservices/ManagedClient.app/Contents/Resources/createmobileaccount -n USERNAME -p ‘PASSWORD’ -h /Volumes/EXTERNAL-VOLUME/Users/USERNAME

You could also encrypt the home directory with FileVault using the -e flag

If you look at the files in ~/Library/Application Support/Aperture you can see that most of a user’s data is stored there. Keywords seem to be stored in the Library file itself.

You might be able to get away with a symlink onto a automounted file share or world-readable directory, but Aperture may behave erratically if it does not have read/write access to its preference files.

What I would recommend doing (depending on your scale) is using a launchd item that will copy the desired files into a user folder at login. You can also do this as a login item and enforce the settings using Apple’s client management architecture (if you have an OS X Server in place).

An AppleScript set as a login item (or placed in the Dock with the name ‘Aperture’ and Aperture’s icon…) would do this nicely. Simply copy the files from /Users/Shared/Aperture to ~/Library/Application Support/Aperture and many of the settings that you want to standardize on will be applied. Users will be able to change their settings but everything will revert the next time your script runs.

Here is an AppleScript that will do this:

on run
	tell application "Finder"
		set srcFolder to folder "Aperture" of folder "Shared" of folder "Users" of startup disk
		set theHome to path to home folder
		set destFolder to folder "Aperture" of folder "Application Support" of folder "Library" of (theHome as reference)

		duplicate every file of srcFolder to destFolder

	end tell
end run

You seem clued on network accounts etc using OSX Server and you are into photography. So I got a question.

I know that Aperture doesn’t work as a multiuser tool.

What I want to achieve is that the Aperture settings stored in the users Library folder actually sit on the Network/Library folder. This is so that when different users log in they have the same settings and if the settings are changed everyone gets them.

It would be really useful, since even custom metadata views are “user” not “system”

Potentially it might be a symbolic link. Any advice would be most appreciated.

Sadly, not as far as I can tell. I’ve tried and could never get it to work.

In theory, it should be possible, but I can’t figure out all of the details.

I don’t believe it is possible to do external accounts without Mac OS X Server. Essentially the external account is a network account that has been set to be a mobile account (which allows for a local home folder to be created). Because of the wording of the checkbox that would enable this for a local-only system I don’t think it will work: “Create mobile account when user logs in to a network account”

When I tested, I was unable to get it to work. It may be possible to copy the user’s account into from the dslocal store into the user’s home folder and rename it- but I couldn’t get that would work, either. I was clearly missing something. Loginwindow recognized the account, but it wouldn’t take my password.

Thanks!
Shawn