OS X 10.5 Server and Netboot

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steveo2000steveo2000
Posted:
in macOS edited January 2014
Hello,



Im trying to setup netboot on 10.5 server. However i'm having issues!!



All are client machines run 10.4 and I need to take an image to sit in the NetBootSP() folder on the sever so I can hold the "N" key down on the machines to load up the Netboot program. However I have my "Perfect machine" and im wondering where to go from here. I've tried many ways of getting the image off the machine and onto the server!



Does anyone know the best way to do this?



I understand if I had 10.5 clients I can setup a workflow to take the image and put it onto an external drive but having 10.4 I cant seem to find any documents relating to 10.4 clients on a 10.5 server!



thanks, any help would be fantastic!



Steve

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 1
    dstranathandstranathan Posts: 1,717member
    Remember there are 2 images at work here. A boot image, which must be able to boot your Macs over the LAN. This sits on the NetBoot server and mainly uses tftp for transport I think. Then you have your master deployment image, which of couse is what gets cloned on to your production workstaions. This can use AFP, HTTP, etc.



    Building the master image can be done a lot of ways. Take you time and make it good. You can use Apple's tools, which I havent used in a while, but I hear that Leopard made a lot of improvements. I tend to be monolithic and clone with NetRestore Helper from Bombich (which is deprecated but still works). There are other cloning options like Carbon Copy Cloner, Deja-vu, etc. You can also play with Josh's InstaDMG over at AFP548. This is a package based deployment paradigm. Very modular and dynamic. Its fairly new but gaining popularity. I have AFP configured on my NetBoot server, so I can upload images as needed to my server over the LAN, or 'sneaker-net' them over via a FireWire drive too.



    I have a dedicated Mac that I build all my master images on. I get a new one every 18 months or so to keep it up to date in terms of hardware, chipsets, etc. I always put the most recent OS X releases on my images to ensure compatibility will all my hardware (example: Apple recently added the Nvidia chipsets to their hardware, and OS X finally rolled all those new kernel extensions and drives in 10.5.6 I think (or was it 10.5.5?). You need to update your boot image sometimes too of course to make sure the new Macs can NetBoot as expected. This requires a minimal amount of OS resources, but it still needs to be compatible.



    I update my master image about every 3 or 4 months as needed. I use NetRestore on the server (also from Bombich), which works well for me. Both my NetBoot server and my clients are all running 10.5.6 *Leopard) and all my Macs are Intel based (no PPC around here), thus I have a fairly clean, manageable environment.



    All of my Macs are placed on the same subnet or VLAN as my NetBoot server, thus they can discover my server automatically when holding down the N key at boot time. If you plan on having Macs get deployed from a different subnet or VLAN from your NetBoot server, keep in mind you will need to have your router configured with a DHCP helper that can redirect the bootp/dhcp stuff to the NetBoot server (its normally not routable). Bombich has a workaround tool for this too. For security purposes I keep my NetBoot server on a private subnet and deploy new Macs from a dedicated secured IT build-out room with copper nodes dedicated to that subnet. Just my preference.



    My server uses AFP to mount a share point and copy over the image. You can use HTTP as well. I keep all my images on a external bootable drive too, that way I can image a box in the field in an emergency even if its off the LAN (you can do this via the Disk Utility app's "Restore" tab - very slick feature and damn handy in a pinch. I have been researching a rather new deployment technology called DeployStudio. It has a lot of powerful features, including being about to biuld and upload your master image from a 3rd management system. Apple has some good discussions about this, and Apple also has a Server mailing list too.





    Links:



    http://deploystudio.com/Home.html



    http://www.bombich.com/software/index.html



    http://propagandaprod.com/



    http://www.afp548.com/article.php?st...80916222225163



    http://lists.apple.com/
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