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We have put out a new version of the NetSUS Server. The source has been updated on GitHub and it is also available as both an OVA and an installer.

Added features:

  • Broadcast the Actual Image Name, Image ID & Image Type, drawn from the NBImageInfo.plist for the NBI.
  • IP enhancements to assist with subnet validation and network configuration.
  • POODLE - disabled the use of SSLv3 for webadmin
  • Added support for Cent OS 7 and RedHat 7
  • Other general cleanups & tunes.

https://github.com/jamf/NetSUS/blob/master/README.md

From IRC:

19:31:57 <bruienne> macmule: tell them to fix that hyperlink, I had to copy paste it, LIKE ANIMAL

:)


Thanks & good work!


I had to copy paste it, LIKE ANIMAL

Bwahaha ^^^^


Ah! finally merged the PR from Duncan


I'm assuming that support for 10.10 updates are 'baked in' with this version?


https://github.com/jamf/NetSUS/blob/master/SUS/var/lib/reposado/reposadolib/reposadocommon.py#L85-L87

i would say yes


Anyone having issues with Netboot not able to start on this version?
Looks like the /etc/dhcpd.conf file is doing weird things on this version.
(On a fresh install Ubuntu 14).


Araneta-

I had issues as well. I ended up copying my dhcpd.conf from my previous 3.01 and it worked fine. I think it has to do with the hexadecimal portion of the file, as there was an extra colon at the end of the first "option vendor-encapsulated-options" line. Removing it allowed the netboot to enable (but would show the netboot name as blank) but I could never get it to actually boot until I replaced the file and had it just say Faux Netboot.

Disabling and attempting to reenable Netboot stops it from working again, I believe because its trying to pull the .nbi name and rewriting the hex portion again.

This is on the appliance version, btw.


Thanks @mpienpakdee. I was doing my troubleshooting as well and I found out that the configurefornetboot script can't pull out the imagid properly hence giving us this issue.


@eric.krause How do you update an existing NetSUS box? Just run the installer again?


@jkuo Login to your NetSUS box or use ssh. Run sudo wget http://content.jamfcloud.com/NetSUS_3.0.2.run and then do sudo sh NetSUS_3.0.2.

Hope this helps.


@Araneta - thanks! Looks like it worked. I think. :)


I tried on RedHat EL7, but dhcp cannot be activated here. Is the netboot dhcp patch included here somehow ?
Anyone else having trouble to make netboot work under CENTOS 7 or RHEL7 ?


Does this version give us the ability to select a specific nbi? If I have multiple nbi's, can I select which one to use from a list like we were able to with NetBoot being hosted on an OSX server? I think they called it having more than one image enabled.


@Araneta do you have spaces in the name of your NBI?


@calum_carey No I don't. I also tried removing numbers on the NBI name to no avail.


Is this the first release with centos support? Or has it been there all along?

Wondering if this will run on centos 6.5


CentOS support has been around for a while.
from the release notes for 3.0
http://jamfsoftware-content.s3.amazonaws.com/downloads/NetBootSUSServerUserGuide_v3.0.pdf
external image link


FYI, the NetSUS installer fails it's preinstallation checks on our RHEL 6.4 VM's until we perform the following steps:

cd /etc
touch centos-release
ln -sf centos-release system-release

After installation, we can restore the original symlink and remove "centos-release":

ln -sf redhat-release system-release
rm centos-release

Since RHEL 6.4 is a supported platform, I don't understand why this is necessary. Can we get this fixed?

--Andy


Another issue; the script that NetSUS 3.0.2 uses to obtain the IP address that is used to configure the NetBoot service has an issue in our environment. Basically, our NetSUSes have two IP addresses; one that is the primary IP and a second private IP that is used by VMware as a management interface.

The "/var/appliance/configurefornetboot" script contains the code that is used to gather the IP address:

ip addr show to 0.0.0.0/0 scope global | awk '/[[:space:]]inet / { print gensub("/.*","","g",$2) }'

On our server, this returns two results. For whatever reason, the NetBoot service ends up selecting the private IP, which results in a non-functional imaging environment.

I ended up hard coding our server's IP into the 'configurefornetboot' script, and this resolved the issue. But it seems that some further logic is needed in order to deal with systems that have multiple interfaces/IP addresses.

Incidentally, I was told that the NetSUS project had been forked and that someone other than JAMF was taking over development. Is this true?

--Andy


So i can get the Macs to Netboot okay, but as soon as i try to image a computer it fails on the first task i.e. to partition/format the hard disk. I have also noticed that Disk Utility can not format the Hard Disk either as it fails to unmount the disk. Tried both on Ubuntu 12.04 and 14.04.

Netboot imaging work okay with version 3.0.1 on both versions of Ubuntu

Phil


I have replaced the /etc/dhcpd.conf file with one from a 3.01 machine and the netboot portion is still refusing to enable.
This is what I am seeing in the log:

Nov 18 14:20:02 hofpdsiitscasp01 dhcpd: /etc/dhcpd.conf line 13: expecting hexadecimal number. Nov 18 14:20:02 hofpdsiitscasp01 dhcpd: #011 option vendor-encapsulated-options 01:01:01:04:02:FF:FF:07:04:0:00:00:00:08:0 Nov 18 14:20:02 hofpdsiitscasp01 dhcpd: /etc/dhcpd.conf line 16: right brace expected. Nov 18 14:20:02 hofpdsiitscasp01 dhcpd: if Nov 18 14:20:02 hofpdsiitscasp01 dhcpd: ^ Nov 18 14:20:02 hofpdsiitscasp01 dhcpd: Configuration file errors encountered -- exiting Nov 18 14:20:02 hofpdsiitscasp01 dhcpd:

Is there something I should be looking for specifically in the file? I removed the extra colon at the end of the hex number at line 13. from:

:00:0A:;

to

:00:0A;

and the Netboot service still does not start and in addition it puts the colon back every time. Is there something I am missing? Same goes for any changes related to the right brace.


Interestingly enough, creating a new NBI and uploading to the server has allowed the netboot service to enable again.


You guys may like to check whether your NetBoot image contains an NBImageInfo.plist that is binary or XML format.

The 3.0.2 script that replaces the NetBoot name with your NBI's name doesn't read binary XML well.

Here's the trick:

plutil -convert xml1 <path to nbi>/NBImageInfo.plist

Re-upload to your NetSUS NetBoot share and re-select it in NetBoot options ('disable netboot', 'enable netboot').


If your ip address is not showing in the login screen (off the server). And the Netboot shows: SMB://awk.....

Fix @mike.paul: Just add: sudo apt-get install gawk and reboot the machine.