2. User Accounts: Lesson Five

Question 1

What are the five types of user accounts in OS X?

How are they different?

Answer 1

• Standard is the default account type
• Administrative users can make changes to the system
• Guest user doesn’t require a password
• Sharing-only users can access only shared files
• Root user has unlimited access to any file or folder in the system

Question 2

What are some security risks associated with each type of user account?

Answer 2

• Standard user accounts are very secure, assuming they have strong passwords.
• Administrative users can make changes that may negatively affect the system or other user accounts.
• A guest user could fill shared folders with unwanted files.
• Sharing-only users are generally very secure as long as they don’t have too much access to other user’s items.
• The potential for mayhem with root user access is nearly unlimited.

Question 3

Which two password methods are supported by OS X El Capitan for local user accounts?

Answer 3

In OS X, local user accounts can take advantage of a locally saved password or a password that’s linked to an Apple ID.

Question 4

What are account attributes?

Answer 4

Account attributes are the individual pieces of information used to define a user account.
Examples include full name, account name, user ID, Universally Unique ID (UUID), group, and home folder.

Question 5

How can you limit a user account from having full access to all apps?

Answer 5

Parental controls can further limit a user account.
Examples include enforcing a simple Finder, limiting apps and widgets, limiting App Store content, setting time limits, and filtering content for several apps included in OS X.

Question 6

What types of resource contention issues can occur when fast user switching is enabled?

Answer 6

• Resource contention occurs when fast user switching is enabled and a user tries to access an item that another user has open in the background.
• Document contention occurs when a user attempts to open a document that another user has already opened.
• Peripheral contention occurs when a user attempts to access a peripheral that’s already in use by another user’s open app.
• Application contention occurs when a second user attempts to access an app that is designed to run only once on a system.

Question 7

Which storage-related security risk can occur when fast user switching is enabled?

Answer 7

When fast user switching is enabled, all users are allowed to see other users’ locally connected disks.