Bootable ISO for Casper Imaging (they have it so good on the PC side)

[donmontalvo]

We are jealous of our PC colleagues. They carry a bootable DVD that they use to image PC's. They boot from a CD and image from their nearest Distribution Point.

On the Mac side we can only provide USB drives (whether replicated or not)...a nightmare to manage, especially if you're replicating to it.

We need a way to provide Casper Imaging bootable ISO's to our Mac techs so they can stop complaining about how good the PC guys have it.

How about it...anyone have the secret? Is there a not-so-well-known-but-possibly-somewhat-supported-by-JAMF process? :)

Thanks,
don

[jarednichols]

How about just allow netbooting across subnets. Job done.

To me, it seems like the bootable USB is far better than DVD. No need to keep burning coasters when it goes out of date and USB's loads faster than optical.

j
---
Jared F. Nichols
Desktop Engineer, Client Services
Information Services Department
MIT Lincoln Laboratory
244 Wood Street
Lexington, Massachusetts 02420
781.981.5436

[#3]

We use FW/USB hard drives and I'm moments away from setting up a high speed SD card. All the new Macs we buy now are either MacBooks or iMacs, so they all handle SD cards.
The drives are replicated but as long you have a network connection you can still hit a local repo. For the most part, this is just how we do things. It has worked well and much smoother than dealing with NetBoot across subnets.
The drives have a very simple clean stripped down OS and boot quickly –much faster than NetBoot.*

* much faster for us, no claims on your NetBoot environment, YMWV

Nick Caro Senior Desktop Support Administrator

[daworley]

I would have to lab this out, but my thought process would lead me to think:
Create a Casper NetInstaller set
Crack open the .nbi, find the NetInstall.dmg, copy it to your Desktop
Use Disk Utility to convert it to an Hybrid Image (10.6 only?)
Burn that [hybrid?] image to a DVD

The man page for hdiutil in 10.7 seems to indicate that default for new images in 10.7 are hybrid (ISO/HFS) by default, which would explain why it's no longer an option in Disk Utility.

I also agree with Jared that USB drives are a likely better option long term, but this might be an option for you to provide parity.

[rob_potvin]

SD card!! Just setup a couple SD cards 8GB. Has all the tools I need 10.7. Hight speed, works great!!

Cheers

Rob

[donmontalvo]

I hear ya, unfortunately NBAS isn't an option as we're expanding to cover 30+ countries. It would be a logistical nightmare.

USB drives have proven to be a challenge as well, they need to be managed and maintained (even though we're not replicating to them).

We have hundreds of Wintel techs around the world reimaging client PC's using bootable CD/DVD discs that pull from their local SMS/SCCM distribution points.

So we're looking to align with their process, boot from DVD and select nearest Distribution Point (there will be one per region per country). Like the Wintel techs, the Mac techs will be responsible for making sure they're using the latest ISO's we provide.

At the end of the day it's about enabling technicians in many countries, who speak different languages, who work for different contract companies, and who can follow simple, illustrated how-to steps (some know very little about Mac)...while minimizing the amount of management steps needed on our end. :)

Don

[tlarkin]

InstaDMG can slipstream apps/updates into a single image file and it can be burned to DVD if that is what you really want. Then scan the image for restore and it should be a bootable DVD

[donmontalvo]

We're actually looking to burn our Restore image (ala KB 236) to DVD and be done with it.

There doesn't seem to be a way to do it, hoping the uber-gurus at JAMF can find a way...since they've perfected doing it with USB... :)

Don

[ernstcs]

That's where I was at with that one. The solution that allows you to eliminate media or drives would be my preferred. I hated the days of carrying discs/drives for things.

Craig E

[sean]

Don,

Is the netboot really a logistical nightmare?

You are having to supply the image to all these countries anyway, right? What difference does it make to supply the images to a netboot location on a server? Is this not a simpler solution to the end user?

Set this up and the Windows guys will be, what, can't we netboot to do installs! The mac guys get it easy!

Sean

[jarednichols]

Seems to me if you've got a local DP, why not have a local NetBoot.

j
---
Jared F. Nichols
Desktop Engineer, Client Services
Information Services Department
MIT Lincoln Laboratory
244 Wood Street
Lexington, Massachusetts 02420
781.981.5436

[tlarkin]

Disk Utility can restore any proper OS image to a hard drive as well. So, you don't really need to boot and install from a DVD. Plus optical drives fail all the time. An external HD with the compiled image on it should restore from Disk Utility. If you really need local drive to drive imaging with the absence of the JSS you can already do it with existing Apple Tools.

-Tom

[Bukira]

I don't think thats what Don means,

I think he wants to replace a net boot server with a local boot image but still use casper imaging to image from the network,

so rather than boot for a netboot image and use casper he wants ti boot from Dvd (as its easier than external drive or usb ) and use casper imaging to deploy the image as per normal

But as others have said he could just install a local netboot server and be done with the faff or DVDs

plus as you say optical drives fail

Criss Myers BArch
Senior IT Analyst (Mac Services)
iPhone / iPad Developer
Apple Certified Technical Coordinator v10.5
LIS Development Team
Adelphi Building AB28
University of Central Lancashire
Preston PR1 2HE
Ex 5050
01772 895050

[Walter]

Is thin-imaging a possible solution? Do you have to completely re-image? At JAMF Nation, the session on Lion deployment provided solutions for three different scenarios - thin imaging for new machines with lion already installed, upgrading 10.6.8 systems to lion with packaging and self-service, and re-imaging dataless systems using packaging and imaging. I'm hoping slideshows from each of the sessions will be published on JAMF Nation. I took notes, but I'm sure I missed valuable details.
--
Walter Rowe, System Hosting
Enterprise Systems / OISM
walter.rowe at nist.gov<mailto:walter.rowe at nist.gov>
301-975-2885

[lance_ogletree]

I'd drop the dvd and run with thumbdrives.
DVDs won't help much with Macbook airs.

With thumbdrives it's easier to create an automation process to keep them updated for field techs.

--
Lance Ogletree
Systems Engineer - South
Mobile: (972) 342-5990
lance.ogletree at jamfsoftware.com<mailto:lance.ogletree at jamfsoftware.com>
lanceo at mac.com<mailto:lanceo at mac.com>(iChat)

....................................................................
JAMF Software
1011 Washington Ave. S
Suite 350
Minneapolis, MN 55415
....................................................................
Office: (612) 605-6625
Facsimile: (612) 332-9054
....................................................................
US Support: (612) 216-1296
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http://www.jamfsoftware.com<http://www.jamfsoftware.com/>

[brlittle]

That was my take. If you're already maintaining a local distribution point, making it a local NetBoot server wouldn't be that much extra effort, aside from the occasional requirement to update your NB images.

B

--
Brian J. Little
Macintosh Computing Analyst: ACTC, ACMT
Davidson College
Information Technology Services
213 N. Main St., Box 7164
Davidson, NC 28035
http://forum.davidson.edu/fieldnotes
704-894-2429

[nessts]

sudo bless --netboot --server bsdp://111.222.333.444
and you don't have to worry about helpers, but I do have a couple of
subnets it just won't boot over. but it works most of the time.
or just put casper imaging on your bootable thumb drive and image from
there.

-- Todd Ness
Technology Consultant/Non-Windows Services
Americas Regional Delivery Engineering
HP Enterprise Services

[tlarkin]

Do note that in 10.7 the bless command changed and I think it prefers tftp now, but yes this will most definitely work to boot across subnets.

[dpertschi]

Don,
I have a similar struggle and Netboot is becoming a much less attractive solution every day.
While the (extremely slow to boot) DVD option is/was convenient for non-technical techs, I'm willing to bet Apple is going to drop the optical drive from their offerings in the near future.
Going forward with 10.7, I'm going to be planning on using USB thumb drives and/or SD cards with a minimal OS X installation and the Casper Imaging app. Boot, launch Casper, pick your config and distro., all good...

Darrin

[stevewood]

Let me paint a picture that I think answers why Don wants this.

Imagine an organization, a global organization, that has lots of politics
in place surrounding the different silos of your traditional infrastructure
organization (server group, network group, desktop group, security group,
etc). Imagine that this organization follows ITIL very closely and has
strict policies in place around change management, and the like. Now,
imagine being a part of the Desktop group and needing to get a NetBoot
server setup in multiple countries. This change would involve the server
group and the network group, and quite possibly the security group as well,
and all of this would have to go through change management with its 3 week
wait time, etc.

Now, the Desktop group has already scored a big win by having distribution
points setup in these different countries, but going back now and asking
for NetBoot on those same servers would be like trying to get money back
from the government: it just ain't going to happen fast and it may even
require some of the political capital that the Desktop group has
accumulated over the years.

Now, the Desktop group has a bunch of "wrench" turners out in these
different countries. Smart enough to push the power button and re-image a
machine, but not quite smart enough to tie their own shoes. They can
figure out how to burn an ISO image to a DVD, perhaps even burn one to a
USB key, but that's about it.

Back at headquarters, the real brains behind the Desktop group can easily
make ISO images for these "wrench turners" to use, and host them on either
the local distribution points, or even on an FTP site at headquarters. Thus, all the "wrench turners" have to do is download the image, burn it
to DVD, and off they go re-imaging machines until the cows come home.

So, while that story is largely fictitious, there are some threads of truth
in it, threads that I lived in a former life. Sometimes the politics of
change management are so great that it just isn't worth fighting the battle
to get the necessary changes in place to run a NB server in different
sites. It's just easier to burn that DVD, or USB key, and go from there. I agree that I think the USB key is the best way to go and not the DVD.

Just my interpretation of Don's request.

Steve Wood
Director of IT
swood at integer.com

The Integer Group | 1999 Bryan St. | Ste. 1700 | Dallas, TX 75201
T 214.758.6813 | F 214.758.6901 | C 940.312.2475

[rockpapergoat]

bleak…

[tlarkin]

There are solutions still with out using DVDs. In fact, in my personal
(and I guess professional) opinion imaging from DVDs is not at all
optimal. It is slow, more prone to failure, disks get scratched all the
time, you still have to distribute images to burn - or worse mail out
DVDs to your client. You can asr over http, so dropping your image on
any web server and then having them use an asr script to image would
probably be ideal. Though it could be super slow depending on network
infrastructure.

If you are already deploying the image file for them to burn it would
be just as easy and more efficient to do drive to drive imaging I would
think.

[jarednichols]

Forgiveness is easier to receive than permission.

j
---
Jared F. Nichols
Desktop Engineer, Client Services
Information Services Department
MIT Lincoln Laboratory
244 Wood Street
Lexington, Massachusetts 02420
781.981.5436

[donmontalvo]

Wow, lots of responses, lots of ideas...we're definitely veering off on tangents. :)

Our requirement is to burn our Restore image to DVD. Since there isn't a way to do this with Casper, we've submitted a feature request.

Back to our regularly scheduled programming...

Thanks,
Don

[RobertHammen]

Why can't you maintain your restore image as a .dmg file on a server (sync'd to your distribution points)? Write a script that will copy that .dmg onto a USB drive or SD media (removing Disk Utility from the equation)? I would make the restore image as minimal/generic as possible and utilize the "configurations" ability of Casper Imaging to maintain the actual images/configurations centrally.
On Nov 15, 2011, at 11:57 AM, Don Montalvo wrote:

Make it easy enough for the field techs to re-image their boot media periodically (and implement a version number in the .dmg name). I really think, with Apple moving away from optical media, that we in IT should be forward-looking and start figuring out ways to not assume that optical media exists/is an option...

--Robert

[p_owen]

I'm with Don and Steve on this one. Netboot is not an option on our networks. We're stuck with USBs and they quite frankly kind of suck. Expensive, slow, hard to maintain (did you upgrade your JSS? Guess what you get to upgrade next? 50 USB booters!)

I want to boot up to something cheap and handy and launch Casper Imaging. Thats it. Surely SOME gearhead has come up with a bootable ISO w/ a Linux kernel that can run Casper Imaging?

(Fantasy...)

[tlarkin]

Hey Patrick,

Have you explored the option of target mode imaging? That may be more efficient than imaging via local USB disks. Another option would be to look at thing imaging solutions.

Would either of those two options be possible for your environment?

Thanks,
Tom

[ktappe]

What stevewood outlined is very close to our environment....except that making infrastructure changes takes closer to 3 months, not 3 weeks. And setting up local servers makes no sense in offices where there are 4 Macs or 7 Macs (two real-life cases for us.) A DVD is too small to hold our current image and of course Airs and now Retinas have no optical drive anyway. So USB is really our only option.