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OS X Server help

V

VeeDubbs

Limp Gawd
Joined
Dec 9, 2005
Messages
398
Hi all,

First let me say I am not normally a Mac person and no just a little about them. However, the main Mac guy here does not know the answer to this question either, so I took it upon myself to get the answer, I've googled and can't seem to find much. We recently got an OS X server for a number of reasons. One reason is to help with the imaging process of all the Macs. We have NetBoot working fantastically. My question is, if I want to put a new Install Image on the OS X server; is there a way to do that through the network?

Sorry if it a compete n00b question.
 
I'm in charge of the imaging for the school district that I consult for. We use Bombich's NetRestore which relies on OSX's NetBoot to function. I've used NetBoot minimally but my expertise is with NetRestore. I'm not sure if you're trying to create the image of just transfer it. If you're trying to create the image, the master computer has to be firewired to the server, there is currently no way to create images of the network. If you're just trying to move the image, you can just mount the share and copy it. For example, I often create the image's on a computer other than the server. Then I will just copy it over the network to the NetBootSP0 folder. Let me know if you have anymore questions.
 
I'm just trying to figure out a way to get the image to the server. There is currently no way to do something similar to ghost for the Mac?
 
I'm assuming you are talking about being able to create the image over the network. Unfortunately that just isn't possible with Mac's. In order to create the image you will have to be physically connected to the server using a firewire cable. Put the master computer into Target Disk mode by holding down "t" while the computer is turning on. The server will then mount the hard drive and it will show up on the desktop. Then you just use System Image Utility to create the NetBoot image.
 
Alright...thanks for the response! That's not cool, but at least I know now!
 
If you're trying to create the image, the master computer has to be firewired to the server
Click to expand...

This is not entirely correct. It is possible to create an image of your existing computer and drop it to a server on the network. Many of the tutorials available about setting up a NetRestore instance discuss this procedure during which you mount the volume from the server and create your image using the NetRestore application. Some limitations you may run into depend on the version of OS you and your Netboot server are running; in truth it's all about the version of ASR you're stuck with. Older ASR releases (pre-10.4) had a limitation of (I believe) 4GB for the total disk image size. With compression, this means all the files on your master computer would have to be less than 7GB of used space (roughly, it's all about the compression). The recent version of ASR allows for larger disk images, but I tend to keep my images as trim as possible to alleviate network congestion during imaging.
 
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