Copy preferences to more than one users home folder

Question

hey all
i have up to 800+ users on some of the servers I maintain @ a k-8 school district.
I need to copy new java preferences in to all of there home folders on the server.
I have tried
cp /Users/computerservices/Library/Caches/Java\ Applets/deployment.properties /Users/*/Library/Caches/Java\ Applets/
it seams that you can not use * in a cp destination
from the spike in CPU usage I think it writes the preferences file to the last(alphabetically) user 800 times
my collage professor said that I need a script but I have not had time to get to writing a script
thanks
sam

Answer 1

here is the code for the script I finished on friday
thanks so much for the help Nils
#!/bin/bash
#copy and paste this in to a new vi file and set chmod to 770
#then save it in /bin/
#you will need to run it while root so you have read/write privileges to all of #the users directories
# prefstick 1.0.1
clear
echo
echo -e "Blank responce at any question will exit program."
echo -e "CapiTalIZatioN and Spelling matters when typing file and folder paths"
echo -e "all y/n questions will take yes, no, Yes, No, Y, N, y, n, or that path that you want."
echo
echo -e "Are your users located in \"/Users/\"?(y/n)\c"
read UsrLocQ
case $UsrLocQ in
[Yy]*)
UsrLoc="/Users/"
[Nn]*)
echo -e "Where are your home folders locatied? (i.e. /StudentUsers/) \c"
read UsrLoc
if [ "$UsrLoc" = "" ]
then
echo "goodbye"
exit
fi
UsrLoc=$UsrLocQ
echo "goodbye"
exit
esac
echo
echo "List of all users located in "$UsrLoc
ls $UsrLoc
echo -e "What user has the master preference?(short name)\c"
read MasUsr
if [ "$MasUsr" = "" ]
then
echo "goodbye"
exit
fi
echo
echo -e "Do you want the new preferences saved in \""$UsrLoc"*/Library/Preferences/\"?(y/n) \c"
read UsrSubDirQ
case $UsrSubDirQ in
[Yy]*)
UsrSubDir="/Library/Preferences/"
[Nn]*)
echo
echo -e "What is the sub directroy for the preference? (i.e. /Library/Safari/) \c"
read UsrSubDir
if [ "$UsrSubDir" = "" ]
then
echo "goodbye"
exit
fi
UsrSubDir=$UsrSubDirQ
echo "goodbye"
exit
esac
echo
MasPrefDir=$UsrLoc$MasUsr$UsrSubDir
echo " list of all items in "$MasPrefDir
ls $MasPrefDir
echo "What preference/preference folder do you want to copy?(i.e. QuickTime\ Preferences or Explorer)"
echo -e " Spaces reqire \ before them."
read MasPref
if [ "$MasPref" = "" ]
then
echo "goodbye"
exit
fi
echo
echo -e "what file permaissions do you want your Preference to have?(I suggest 666):\c"
read MasPrefChmod
if [ "$MasPrefChmod" = "" ]
then
echo "goodbye"
exit
fi
MasPrefLoc=$MasPrefDir$MasPref
chmod -R $MasPrefChmod $MasPrefLoc
clear
echo "Lets review"
echo "You want to copy "$MasPref" from "$MasPrefDir
echo "to all users that fit "$UsrLoc"*"$UsrSubDir
echo "and with the file permissions set to "$MasPrefChmod
echo
echo -e "are you ready to do this? (y/n)\c"
read AreUSure
case $AreUSure in
[Yy]*)
clear
echo "here we go"
echo "goodbye"
exit
esac
MasHome=$UsrLoc$MasUsr
UsrLocShared=$UsrLoc"Shared"
for CpUsr in $UsrLoc*
do
case $CpUsr in
$UsrLocShared)
$MasHome)
$UsrLoc"Icon")
$UsrLoc"Network Trash Folder/")
$UsrLoc"Recent Items/")
$UsrLoc"Starting Points/")
$UsrLoc"Temporary Items/")
$UsrLoc"TheFindByContentFolder/")
$UsrLoc"TheVolumeSettingsFolder/")
$UsrLoc"Users/")
echo $CpUsr
cp -R "${MasPrefLoc}" ${CpUsr}"${UsrSubDir}"
esac
done
echo "Done!"