AutoCasperNBI - open beta

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

@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.

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.

@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?

@bentoms I think it definitely accomplishes that: super easy to make an NBI with it. I guess what I was asking for is to make it a bit more customizable since it looks like the checkboxes are already there. What you say is true that one could create a package to undo some of those options, but checking a box off would be even easier rather than trying to reverse code the option using a package. If you don't think its worth your time, that's cool too. Just figured I'd mention it is all. I haven't looked at the code so I'm sure there's a lot of stuff going on and it might be easier said than done. Either way, I appreciate the work with this app!

@bpavlov no worries.. making each optional would greatly increase the chances of error &/or issues logged..

It's a free tool & I ain't got time for that! So hope that's makes sense couple with the scope of what was planned.

It's about 4800 lines of code, making each optional would massively increase that too!

So my get out was the additional packages as a way of letting people have at it.

BUT.. Pull Requests accepted!! :P

If I were more proficient in AppleScript, I would accept the challenge. But maybe looking at the code will allow for a good learning experience on AppleScript. Or better yet I'm trying to learn Python and perhaps converting it to that would be an even better learning experience.

@bpavlov It was sure a learning experience for me!

I'm also having a problem with the JSS URL not showing up when netbooting a 10.10.4 AutoCasperNBI image. I've tried entering the JSS URL as 10.100.12.9 (failed to retrieve Cert), 10.100.12.9:8443 (did not retain address after netbooting), and 10.100.12.9:9006 (did not retain address after netbooting). What is the correct format for the JSS URL?

I did notice that /var/root/Library/Preferences/com.jamfsoftware.jss.plist in the NBI image contains 10.100.12.9.8443.

https://casper.server.com:8443/

Thank you @bpavlov! We were missing the https://

We used AutoCasperNBI to create our production net boot images for our primary (high speed) student imaging this year with great results. Here's a small clicp of about 80 units being netbooted and imaged (timelapse). On the benches you'll see there are about 40 (19-21 second mark) at a time being netbooted and imaged. Next time I'll get a time lapse of all 365 being done (Again, somewhere between 40 and 80 at a time depending on setup). This is using only a single netboot server, more could be added of course.

YouTube link:
BA Student Imaging

If you watched it you will see that we could be doing far more units more quickly, especially if we used Pre-Stage imaging.

@Chris_Hafner I'd like to see that but it looks like the link you sent is invalid :(

Heh, whoops. I used the edit link. Fixed now.

Nice!