Imaging process for High Sierra 10.13 ...... totally lost...

I haven't had much success with imaging either. We are going about it one of 2 ways currently.

For MacOS devices of ours that pre-date our use of DEP we just do a factory restore of High Sierra - create an initial admin account. Once logged in we run JAMF Imaging and use our typical OS config minus the OS package, and make sure you aren't erase the hard drive (it won't let you if you are running it locally on the machine).

For ones that we have in DEP we are doing factory restores and then enrolling via DEP. We have a smart group for anything newly enrolled with DEP that lays down all the applications/scripts.

Sorry it's not a direct answer to your question, but maybe it will be useful.

You pretty much have to find a way of overlaying what you need on top of the installed macOS. Anything else is somewhat fraught with danger under Apple's new model for doing things.
Look to replacing configurations with policies or something similar.
(JAMF please take note: At this point it would be really convenient if we could use policies to apply configurations, especially nested ones!)

You may find this useful. This was provided to schools in our area education agency after apple had a demo on apple tv's. I have yet to get the script to work but I think it's because I was trying to use it on a 10.12 machine without manually upgrading to 10.13 first. It looks like it should work if you've already gone to 10.13.

Link

@jmercier

Try this Deploying High Sierra 10.13 with Casper Imaging

We are using this to image macs in a 4000+ mac environment.

It will not help you with iMac pros but will provide a stop gap. I highly recommend you start getting DEP into your environment. We are doing this in ours as it will be the only way in the foreseeable future.

@reddrop I'm still wondering how you run you script with auto-run.

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@reddrop hi just to make sure.....

your base image sierra - already working so i won't touch it...
your base image High Sierra APFS : made with autoDMG with APFS option, out of master machine with APFS partition ?
your base image High Sierra HFS : made with autoDMG with HFS option, out of master machine with HFS OR APFS partition ?

We're testing DEP and really want to engage with it but we also wanted a fallback position for lab deployment.
We've always used DeployStudio in the past before implementing Casper/Jamf Pro.
We moved to Casper/Jamf Imaging, just because we wanted to use the tools we paid for!
Up until OS 10.13, Casper/Jamf Imaging has been perfect for our environment. Now though, we're not happy with the results Jamf Imaging produces so we went back to DeployStudio to see what it could do.
We have a workflow using DeployStudio, which is not perfect but suitable for our environment and builds stable systems.
We can deploy both HFS+ and APFS OS 10.13 images to new and existing devices.
Our simple workflow is - Image with DeployStudio using a workflow which enrols the client into Jamf Pro, let Jamf Pro finish off the system with policies and config profiles.
We use netboot to re-provision all our clients and are aware that future Mac clients will not support it, hence the need to fully engage with DEP.
I just can't get it working quite how I would like right now, but that's another story and Jamf are trying to help me get through it.

hence the need to fully engage with DEP

@SWicks I assume, that like me, the jump to DEP is painful at first. For us the big hurdles are self-induced, but it is the way to go. I wouldn't be surprised if we lose (and has been discussed in other posts)

/usr/sbin/asr

in the next few OS releases. We are planning on the assumption that we lose it completely by next macOS just to force ourselves to migrate off imaging.

@easyedc
For us at the moment DEP is painful, in that it's not working as it should be, or should I say - how I expect it to be.
For me the workflow should be, and I think others have a similar workflow:

User Initialted Enrolment with hidden management account - tick
PreStage Enrolment scoped to device assigned in DEP - tick
Settings in PreStage applying during DEP enrolment/Setup Assistant - no tick/inconsistent

The last part could be due to something really obvious but I have Jamf onboard trying to help but no further progress at the moment.

My guess would be to get ready for life to be command +r. The infamous stub installer will be baked in. when you restore it will phone home, check hash and download the new OS