That can be down to a bunch of things usually:
1) can the distribution point be mounted from inside the netboot environment?
2) is your netboot server set to use diskless mode?
3) did you select the replace rc.netboot file option in autocaspernbi ?

It's usually one of those.

@franton

I recently started having this issue as well. I can tell you:

1)Yes, all of our DPs are mountable.
2)We're using the Netboot Appliance, and it is diskless as I can unmount the drive, and wipe it manually.
3)I haven't selected that option. Are you saying selecting can cause or Help with the issue?

If I wipe the drive before imaging and do NOT select the wipe drive, it works just fine.

Hi All,

Thanks for the testing & thanks again to those whom attended my talk @ JNUC.

Slides & Links can be found at the following: https://macmule.com/2014/10/25/jnuc-2014-autocaspernbi-and-the-casper-netinstall-creator-session-slides-links/

Question for you on customizing the dock for the root user (we need disk util and a few other things in there). I tried simply packaging up the com.apple.dock.plist from a prior netboot and added it to AutoCasperNBI as an additional install (the permissions are root:wheel). It didn't do anything to the dock when I fired the netboot up for the first time.

I see that in your documentation images, you have a custom dock plist installing. Any magic you know of to make this work?

Additionally, I'd love to see checkboxes to enable items such as Disk Utility, Safari, etc in the root dock in the GUI of AutoCasperNBI.

Hi @dgreening,

Was that dock.plist from a root user account? We customise ours & it's installed via pkg fine. Here is is below:

external image link

TBH, i'm not going add dock options as we all do it differently & one of the main use cases for adding additional PKG's is to allow you to do just that.

Using a pkg for a dock icon was the direction I was going too. We have an AppleScript in our dock that helps erase FileVault enabled disk. With that said, is there a way to suppress Casper Imaging from opening at boot since it's greyed out in the GUI? We'd want our users to click the AppleScript in the dock first. I mucked around in some plists and found settings that I thought might disable this during image creation, but they had no effect.

Hi @bmarks,

From: https://macmule.com/autocaspernbi/#options-advanced (which is the help guide in the app).

Launch Casper Imaging At Login: A Launch Agent is installed which launches Casper Imaging once logged into the NBI.

This Launch Agent can be found at: /Library/LaunchAgents/com.AutoCasperNBI.CasperImaging.plist

Ah, I see. So it's just a matter of removing that from the NBI one it's been created. I was thinking about this from the wrong angle. Thanks, that works for me.

@bmarks, you should be able to create a payload-free pkg that deletes the launch agent as part of the NBI creation.

Also, can you share your script: https://jamfnation.jamfsoftware.com/discussion.html?id=12305

It's something i'd like to bake in at some point.

@bentoms

Thank you for this tool Ben, it works really well. I've imaged about 10 machines with it so far.

@bentoms

Hi Ben,

Great application, one little quirk I've come across is that I get the iCloud and Diagnostics setup windows pop up before the Casper Imaging starts installing software after the first restart. Is there a way to avoid this from popping up?

Thanks,
Paul

@paulnz are you using 10.10.1 as a base OS.dmg?

@paulnz Here's how to do it the long way, but not sure if that will help you when building in AutoCasperNBI:
https://derflounder.wordpress.com/2014/10/16/disabling-the-icloud-and-diagnostics-pop-up-windows-in-yosemite/

@calumhunter yes, 10.10.1 is the base for the image.

Looks like you'll need to add the LastSeenBuddyBuild key to the setup assistant plist
i've just send a PR to @bentoms on github which should fix it.
In the mean time have a look at that link and you can manually add that key to the plist after autocaspernbi does its thing

@calumhunter Ok awesome, thanks for that :)

@paulnz & @calumhunter, thanks for pointing that out.

Fix is in 1.1.2, which has just been posted.

I also opened an issue for this in the github repo, that I will close.

But if/when any more issues are found, please can people log them: https://github.com/macmule/AutoCasperNBI/issues

Hi @bentoms,

I have been meaning to report an issue with the Netboot Image Index field. Any attempt to change the number will cause dialog "Maximum Exceeded - Please provide a valid value" This happens with any number supplied (all within the defined range) and with and without the checkbox for "Will be served on more than one server. ! would have let you know about this on github, but I have not yet created an account.

Building on 10.10.1 using AutoCasperNBI 1.1.3

Best regards

-Dennis

@dmueller, thanks.. logged as https://github.com/macmule/AutoCasperNBI/issues/12

@dmueller

Resolved with 1.1.4.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Just came across AutoCasperNBI recently - this is awesome! Using 1.1.4 AutoCasperNBI in conjunction with latest AutoDMG (another awesome tool), I've successfully created working Netboot images for 10.10.1, 10.9.5, and 10.8.5. So far, so good.

What I'd like to do now is to create NBI's for two older OS's - 10.7.5 and 10.6.8. The priority would be 10.7.5. AutoDMG only works for 10.8 and newer, so I've tried creating OS images by to feed into AutoCasperNBI by clean-installing 10.7.5 onto a laptop, then using both Casper Composer and standard Disk Utility to image the drive. Unfortunately, AutoCasperNBI is unable to read either variation, failing with an "Unable to Read OS Version" when I "Select" the OS image to use. I'm booted to 10.8.5 when running AutoCasperNBI. Is it limited to building 10.8 or newer nbi's?

Hi @bentoms,

Definitely working much better now. Thank you Sir.

@HempfieldTech, I have tested with 10.7+ via AutoDMG & it works for me.

But, I have had people also advise of issues with 10.7.x

2 questions:

1. Have you changed the name of the HD?


2. Could you possibly upload the DMG somewhere for & send a link to it via http://macmule.com/contact or drop me a line there & I'll reply with somewhere for you to upload.

@dmueller, glad to hear it!

@bentoms

Hmmmm .... well, before I do that, let me re-visit creating an 10.7.5 OS.dmg with AutoDMG first. I'm guessing if I can get that to work, AutoCasperNBI will work fine. One of those things where I was doing so much fiddling around with different variations, I may have missed something simple. I'll report back ....