ASR Casper Imaging

[#1]

Hello everyone,

I have been working on an issue for four weeks now. We are using Casper to image MAcBooks. We only have one model of MacBook and only one image file for all of them. They are 13 inch late 2009 models. We currently have a Linux DHCP server set to netboot and holds our .nbi folder. The Casper server does not hold or run the netboot process. The netboot is set to launch Casperimaging and restore our 4.4GB base image. No software just OS we push packages after login. The netboot takes about 5 mins. The system restore takes about 2 hours. The logs indicate that the CasperImaging never starts the block copy process (ASR) and goes right into Ditto.

I can from the network, run the asr terminal commands and from my casper server restore my image to a USB flash drive in 20 minutes. I am currently working with JAMF they have been working on for almost 2 weeks with no progress. Does anyone out there have any guess as to why my server would allow the ASR process to work outside of casper or why the Casper Imaging would not try and start that process at all.

The image is set at priority 1. We have had the netboot running on the casper server we just moved it off to reduce load on the server to see if it helped. Baffled.

[sean]

If I am reading this correctly, you are booting your mac using a base image (netboot) that is supplied by a linux box and this works.
You are then trying to install an image (netinstall) which is the problem, but where is this image stored, on the linux server or on your mac Casper server?

Is one of these set as a distribution point?

If you are booting to the linux server, then I imagine that if the OS netinstall image you wish to push is on the mac Server, then the mac Server is down as a distribution point, otherwise I guess Casper would be looking for the image on the linux box instead.

If this is the case, have you tried moving the netinstall image to the linux box?

Alternatively, have you (for example nfs) mounted the mac server on the linux server to make the files appear local to the linux box?

Essentially, how does the client know where the image is, what protocol is being used to download this image to the client and is it having to do a double hop?

Sean

[#3]

Sean,

Only the netboot is on Linux. The Base image is on the Casperserver. After working with JAMF, my understanding is that you set the priority to 1 and it tells Casper Imaging to use the ASR process and block copy the image down. My casper server is the distro point. We have tried to set up an alternate distro point to see if that helped but it did not change the outcome. That ASR process never kicks off when Casper is in the picture. However I can manually run the asr process from a Mac and image the machine in about 7 minutes. Packet captures indicate no errors nor do the logs from casper, or the server. mind boggling.

Thanks,

Shannon L Rico
Sr. Network Engineer
GISD
d: 972-487-3663
c: 214-882-3621

[bentoms]

Is your NetBoot diskless?

Regards,

Ben.

[tlarkin]

Also, is the Casper share mounting when running Casper imaging?

[#6]

Try replicating absolutely everything you can about the process that Casper uses (boot from NetInstall, mount Caspershare the same way, etc.), then see how fast ASR is (and whether it succeeds) from that environment. Also, which version of Casper is this?

On Apr 26, 2011, at 11:02 AM, Thomas Larkin wrote:

Also, is the Casper share mounting when running Casper imaging?

[bentoms]

Looks like Linux does not do diskless netboots without a hack. Have you tried the below?

http://www.afp548.com/article.php?story110201151411464

Regards,

Ben.

[#8]

FYI,

Ealry during our troubleshooting phase, we had unchecked Erase Target HD. This morning just fro the fun of it we rechecked it and ASR worked....

JAMF is not sure why that fixed the issue but are looking into it.