AutoCasperNBI - open beta

[bentoms]

Update: AutoCaspeNBI has been released, for more information see: https://macmule.com/autocaspernbi/

Hi All,

Over the past couple of months I've been working on an app that with streamline NetBoot creation for use with Casper Imaging (as well as creation of Read-Only DMGs to restore to USB sticks.. if that's your thing).

The basic idea is that you start with an clean never booted OS.dmg either from AutoDMG https://github.com/MagerValp/AutoDMG, Casper Admin http://macmule.com/2014/03/06/how-to-create-an-never-booted-os-dmg-using-casper-admin/ or a Composer captured OS.dmg from a never booted Mac (as in with forked builds).

Then add a copy of Casper Imaging, from there you can click build or amend the options on the first window or click the options button for more.

All the options should have popovers that explain their functions in a bit more detail. Most of the options set will be written to a plist (~/Library/Preferences/com.macmule.AutoCasperNBI.plist) will allows for AutoCasperNBI to be re-run when needed with the settings you haves used before.

external image link

You should see some blanks in the GUI & parts i've not added yet (due to the fact that I'm not sure how yet). These should be added at some point.

Then there will be a full 1.0 release & include:

• Calculate space needed & alert if we do not have enough
• Enable the "Additionals" tab. This will allow you to install pkgs to customise the .nbi further as well as additional JSS certs
• Add some sort of sparkle updater
• Add .jamfTarget creation

[jmercier]

hi i was wondering if my problem was related to this post...

just tried to create my new Nbi netbook 10.10 with autocaspernbi...

took the procedure of using casper admin and import the installesd 10.10...

so i have : DMG 10.10, autocaspernbi and casper imaging 9.63 AND tried 9.61

when i netbook i stay stuck at the apple logo with the progress bar forever... and once a while i get a kernel message

[jyoung]

@jmercier Sounds exactly like what I was seeing with 27" iMac Retina machines. Was only happening to those. Older machines we had in house seemed to work fine. 10.10.2 fixed the kernel panic but introduce nothing doing a block copy.

[jmercier]

so you mean that if i update my base dmg to 10.10.2 before capturing it in casper admin and after in autocaspernbi should be working ?

[jmercier]

Tried 10.10.2 from autoDMG... then build with autocaspernbi with imaging 9.61

still stuck at apple logo while netting with progress bar half way through

[jmercier]

WOW got it working... but the netbook takes forever to boot !!!!

is there a reason why the same netbook yosemite goes real fast on older imac and MacBooks... and its really slow to boot on brand new imac 2015...

[jyoung]

@jmercier did you just 9.61 on the netboot image or on both image and server?

[jmercier]

i dit the 9.61 version in autocaspernbi...
my casper server is at 9.63

i can netboot all my old computers (old 2014 and older) but i have 3 brand new imac 2015 and either they take forever to boot... or either i get a kernel error to reboot

[bmarks]

@bentoms

So, I used AutoCasperNBI to create a new NetBoot image based on 10.10.1 and Casper Imaging 9.63 and with this combination I AM able to initiate a block copy of a 10.10.2 base image. Thus, it would seem to be the case (considering the other thread too,) that there seems to be some kind of conflict with block copying 10.10.2 if your NetBoot image is ALSO 10.10.2. That what seems to be repeatable at this point.

[bmarks]

And, just to be clear, this seems to have nothing to do with the AutoCasperNBI app itself.

[jescala]

@bmarks I'm having the problem when I NetBoot with 10.10.2 and try to block copy a 10.10.1 dmg.

[jyoung]

I just tried a new AutoCaperNBI with 10.10.2 os and Imaging 9.61. Same behavior no block copy. I'm going to put a pin in this one until Monday.

[RobertHammen]

I'll confirm a 10.10.1 AutoCasper NBI and Casper Imaging 9.6.3 will block-copy both 10.10.1 and 10.10.2 base OSes.
10.10.2 AutoCasper NBI and Casper Imaging 9.6.3 will file-by-file copy a 10.10.2 base OS.

The issue seems like it's in Casper Imaging. Has anyone opened a case with JAMF? @amanda.wulff are you guys aware of this possibility?

[were_wulff]

@RobertHammen][/url

We do actually have a defect open for this behavior (D-008472) that came out of a few cases.

What it’s looking like so far, and please bear in mind that this is new to us as well so we’re still doing testing on the behavior which means the information I have at the time of this posting may change, is that if the OS that is running Casper Imaging is 10.10.2 we’ll see the behavior described both in this thread and over in this thread.

If the OS that is running Casper Imaging is 10.10.1 or something lower, it works as we’d expect, as it looks like you’ve already seen in your environment.

Currently, I’m testing out what @maccentric][/url has seen in their environment and, once it finishes (or fails), will be looking at my system.log file to see if anything leaps out as different between the OS Imaging is running on being 10.10.2 or something that is not 10.10.2.

If you’d like to dig into it further, or would like to get a case opened up for confirmation that the behavior you're seeing in your environment is D-008472 and not something else, and so we can get your case attached to D-008472 once the behavior is confirmed, please get in touch with your Technical Account Manager either by giving Support a call, by sending an e-mail to support@jamfsoftware.com (it routes directly to their case queue), or by using the My Support section of JAMF Nation.

Thanks!
Amanda Wulff
JAMF Software Support

Edited because I misspelled my own name. Good thing it's Friday and a short drive home. :)

[bentoms]

@bmarks, thanks for confirming.

Everyone else, this says it's fixed in 9.64.

https://jamfnation.jamfsoftware.com/discussion.html?id=13184#responseChild77918

[CorpTech]

Is there any kind of ETA or workaround for the time being? Just image off a host running 10.10.1 or lower for now?

[bentoms]

@CorpTech, imaging off of a 10.10.1 host for now.

[lynnp]

@bentoms this seems like it would be perfect for us, but when we try to use the NBI we built with AutoCasperNBI, it doesnt actually boot to any of our hardware, whereas NBIs we made with SIU have worked without problem.

I verified that the kernelcache is reasonably sized (13MB) and in both i386/ and i386/x86_64/

We're netbooting from an OSX server and using a 10.9.5 base image.

Not sure what else could be causing this.

[lynnp]

For what it's worth, my problem was related to using AutoCasperNBI on a machine running 10.10 to create a 10.9 NBI. Creating a 10.10 NBI worked without problem.

The error I was seeing was "error loading kernelcache (0xe)"

[RobertHammen]

AutoDMG requires you to be booted from the OS to make the base OS DMG, so I tend to use AutoCasperNBI as a 2nd step and build it on the same OS that the NetBoot image is...

[lynnp]

Yeah I had already had a few base OS images lying around that I had made with AutoDMG, so I was using those to test.

In the future it will be extremely unlikely that I would have an OS mismatch during this process.

[bentoms]

@lynnp, thanks for logging the issue on GitHub.. I've an update version in the works & I'll see if I can work a fix into that.

@RHammen, @justinrummel & @lynnp.. FWIW.. The OS running AutoCasperNBI shouldn't matter. I had 10.10 beta creating 10.7.5-10.10 NBI's fine. So there must be a new change.

AutoCasperNBI generates the needed files for the NBI it creates, so no same OS dependency.

[bentoms]

@lynnp Please try this pre-release version of AutoCasperNBI

Hopefully the fix in there works for you.

[bentoms]

More pre-release information:

[tkimpton]

Do you know where the Untitled volume on the desktop is located used for the RAM disk?

Possibly this can be hidden with a launchdaemon and chflags hidden command?

[jubei]

@bentoms - I saw in some of your docs that you had pkgs installed to setup the dock. Can you point me in the direction of how to create those? Is it just capturing the dock plist in Composer? I would love to add some stuff to the dock (Disk Utility, etc.). Thank you!

[RobertHammen]

@jubei I did this by enabling the root user on my local Mac. Set up the Dock the way I wanted, set Safari homepage prefs to my JSS, set Debug menu in Disk Utility.

Used Composer to package those 3 plists from /private/var/root/Library/Preferences and built a PKG file, which I copied to the root of the drive.

Logged out, logged back in as my standard user and disabled the root account. Then, added that .pkg file to my AutoCasperNBI workflow.

[bentoms]

@jubei what @RHammen said.

He's on fire today.

[RobertHammen]

Heh. Someday Ben will remember that my main account here is @RobertHammen ;-)

[jubei]

Thanks you @RobertHammen !

[tkimpton]

Created a launch daemon with chflags hidden command to hide the RAM disk, packaged it up and added it to Auto CasperNBI. Now the RAM disk is hidden every time :)

[boberito]

Does AutoCasperNBI support 10.10.3? Because I've created the disk image with Disk Utility and tried with Composer and it says "Cannot read OS Version"

[Chris_Hafner]

Yes it does (newest version FYI). I am running a 10.10.3 NBI, with casper Imaging 9.7 that was created using AutoCasperNBI 1.1.7

[boberito]

The newest that downloads from https://macmule.com/autocaspernbi/ by clicking the big Download Now button for me is 1.1.4.....Where's 1.1.7?

Ignore me, i see 1.1.7 and 1.1.8 are pre-releases.

[Chris_Hafner]

You caught me there for a moment! I realized that 1.1.7 was an open beta along with 1.1.8. Glad you found them!

[bentoms]

Hi all,

I'll probably release 1.2 this weekend, it has all of the fixes from the pre-releases & one outstanding issue that I can't recreate myself.

[tkimpton]

launchdaemon to hide the ram disk

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.hide.ramdisk.Launchd</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>chflags</string>
        <string>hidden</string>
        <string>/private/var/netboot</string>
    </array>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>
</dict>
</plist>

[bentoms]

@tkimpton thanks. Can you open an issue on GitHub? I'll forget otherwise.

[bpavlov]

@bentoms I just started testing AutoCasperNBI. Fantastic tool. I can submit this as an enhancement but figured I'd ask here first. Is there any way to make the "Always Set" options optional?

For example, in case you do not want to use root or want to set a different password. Or in case you don't want auto-login or want to setup a different dock. These are just things that quickly come to mind.

[JPDyson]

Just wanted to say that I love this little tool for it's prescribed use, but it's also made my life a bit easier in another way: physical media for imaging. I've had great success with restoring the created image to a USB flash drive and booting from that where NetBoot is not currently possible.

[bentoms]

@bpavlov The idea is for AutoCasperNBI to make the NBI creation process easier & the subsequent NBI's more successful for use with Casper Imaging.

With that said, you can add Additional Packages that make the changes wanted, such as to stop autologin delete the kcpassword file etc..

@JPDyson Thanks! Are you using this option?