10.7 Netboot Image - Does it need to run from a 10.7 server?

[mark_sampers]

I'm having problems installing a 10.6.8 configuration using a 10.7 netboot image. (Casper Imaging seems to complete but on reboot, I get the white apple screen with the spinning gear that never stops.) The server we use to netboot is running Snow Leopard Server. I was wondering if anyone else has attempted this and if they are successful. Do I need to upgrade my xserve to Lion? Thank you in advance for your help.

-Mark Sampers
ISD196

[Sandy]

Hi Mark,
My netboot servers are 10.6.8, serving netboot images: 10.4.11, 10.6.8 (for single core intels) and 10.7.3
Imaging PPCs through new MacBook Pros.

I am having issues netbooting Airs.....just starting to dig into that.
Happy summer!
Sandy

[matthew-c]

This works for us too (10.7.3 Netboot from a 10.6.8 Xserve).

As for the airs you will probably find you have the same problem with new mac minis and later macbook pros too. Are you netbooting from a DHCP network or a statically assigned one?

cheers

Matt

[jhbush]

We netboot airs and pros from 2010-2011 without issue on a 10.6.8 Xserve and mini servers. The trick I guess is to build the netboot set on new hardware and just zip the set and copy it to the server for hosting. I also have the root user set to autologin as well. This was supposedly fixed but I kept my sets that way just to be sure. We also host net install and net restore sets as well for 10.7.4.

[donmontalvo]

We have a few 10.5.8 NetBoot servers (PPC Xserve) hosting 10.5, 10.6 and 10.7 NBI's.

[jarednichols]

In the past, I've found that a 10.7 NetBoot laying down a 10.6.x image requires 1 additional step on the newly re-imaged machine:

When it reboots, hold shift to boot it to safe mode. It'll take a bit longer, but once you hit the login screen (or desktop, given your config) reboot it as normal and you're good to go.

My only thought is that safe mode re-builds some sort of critical files.

[daworley]

Safe boot automatically runs fsck. Your behavior makes sense if the 10.7 version of asr lays down something funny in the file system of a 10.6 image.

[Sandy]

@matthew-c,
I built my 10.7. netboot on an external drive connected to the newest Macbook Pro, then using Apple SIU on a 10.7 server, moved after creation to the 10.6 netboot server

It will netboot every intel except single cores and new airs, including a new MBPro i5, late 2011, which I imaged, ran all updates (no firmware updates available) and then was again able to netboot.

My netboot images all log in as root and Casper Imaging opens at login.

I do not have an Air to play with right now, but one concern is that the image was created on a MBPRo
Then there's this as well:

We netboot from a DHCP network, hosted independently.
I have sent notes on to my Network administrator:
https://jamfnation.jamfsoftware.com/discussion.html?id=25

Sandy

[stevewood]

Sandy - try doing everything on the MBP that you created the image on. So, boot the MBP and setup the system the way you want (install Casper Imaging, enable root, etc). Once you are completely satisfied, boot the MBP from an external drive. Run SIU from the external drive on the MBP and create your NBI.

Everything needs to be done from that MBP. In your description, you mentioned that you ran SIU from a 10.7 Server that you have. Unless that instance of 10.7 Server was running on the MBP, I believe that is where your problem is.

Any time I've created an image, whether using InstaDMG or using SIU, if I do all of the work on the same machine, I have no problems with the image or NBI.

HTH

[themacdweeb]

as long as you create your netboot image with the proper OS and version of SIU, once completed, i have found that i can then host the resulting .nbi file on ANY server.

currently hosting 10.7 images on a 10.6 server and vica versa.

[tlarkin]

Hey Everyone,

The question has already been answered but I thought I'd chime in and point out a few things. Netboot itself is just a subset of DHCP, and the NetBoot service just listens for NetBoot requests, pretty much in the same manner PXE booting works. These technologies really have not changed over the years at all. So, it is impossible to run legacy hardware and OS to serve a netboot image for Macintosh clients.

At my old job we had a mix of 10.4, 10.5, and 10.6 servers, all running that iteration of OS X Server. I had it on G5 desktops, Mac Minis, and Xserves. I ran netboot on all of them. Once a Netboot image loads, it will load the kernel extensions, boot loader, and the boot efi from the netboot image itself. So, it never really boots off the server platform at all. You can host netboot images on a Linux box as well since it loads it form the netboot image instead.

I had Macbooks, Macbook Pros, Mac Minis, iMacs, and Macbook Airs all netbooting off of most of these servers to image them. In my experience Netboot is one of those things that isn't overly complicated and it is not super hard to set up, but it is time consuming and it has some annoyances.

When I go out and do jump starts for new customers the thing I dread the most is setting up Netboot. Not that I cannot get it working, so far I have a 100% track record of getting it working, it is the fact it takes up so much time and troubleshooting it can eat up a lot of time during the training. So, I always say evaluate how you are imaging machines to ensure that is the most efficient method, and then streamline your process of creating Netboot images and hosting them on your servers.

Every time you upgrade the Casper Suite, you need to upgrade your netboot image. This is because the Casper Imaging app has the binary of that version inside of it, which it uses for some operations. So, when a new version comes out it will have the new version of the binary embedded in it. I really wish there was a better way of quickly building them, maybe if I ever have any free time (that is sort of a joke there ha!) I can sit down and figure out a work flow for creating a barebones netboot image that can be easily updated; or if one of you want to do that I think everyone would owe you lots of free beers.

So, to answer the question, yes you can netboot from one platform to another. You will just have to take the time to make sure it works.

Thanks,
Tom

[rongrw]

Hi Guys,

Steve Wood's suggestion to build all aspects of the NBI on the latest model of Mac, gave me hope. So, I did that on the late 2011 model of Macbook Pro 15". I created a Mac OSX Lion 10.7.4 system in one of the MBP's partitions. Then I booted the external HDD, running 10.7.4 and Casper Suite 8.52. I captured the image using Composer. Then I used SIU (on the external HDD) to create the NBI.

After uploading and installing the NBI to our netboot server, running Mac OSX Lion Server 10.7.4, I attempted to netboot this MBP. Unfortunately it still didn't work. There are entries in the netboot log indicating that connections were made, but still it wouldn't boot.

The problem seems to be more complex than simply building the NBI on the target Mac. BTW our network configurations are served from DHCP. Also, interestingly, the late 2011 model of iMac 21.5" does netboot successfully.

Cheers,
Ron.

[bentoms]

Hi Ron,

Do you have the old NetBoot Images on the server? if so, can you disable them?

Also, NetBoot "caches" some settings when a device connects.. if possible can you clear the NetBootClients folder?

If you don't want to clear the whole folder, you should be able to get the client name from server admin & that is the folder you'll need to delete for the Macs that are not working.

Hope that makes some semblance of sense.

[rongrw]

Hi Tom,

There are no old netboot images. We only have the one OSX 10.7.4 NBI. As for the netboot clients folder, I'm assuming you mean /Library/NetBoot/NetBootClients0. I've deleted all of its contents now.

Tried to netboot the MBP, but unfortunately still no joy.

I don't know if this gives any clue, but when I netboot the MBP there are two pairs of "BSDP INFORM [en0]"/"Netboot: [...]" listed in the netboot log. When the iMac netboots, which it does successfully, the netboot log shows three such pairs.

Cheers,

Ron.