Casper Imaging-Some machines asleep while logged in as adobeinstaller

endor-moon
Contributor II

I'm using three servers for Casper 9.73 imaging: The JSS is running under CentOS 6.5 on an IBM box, the distribution point is an Xserve 2009 running 10.9.5 and the NetBoot server is another Xserve 2009 running 10.9.5 for NetBoot across subnets with this command:

bless --netboot --booter tftp://10.120.202.21/NetBoot/NetBootSP0/CasperYosemite.nbi/i386/booter --kernel tftp://10.120.202.21/NetBoot/NetBootSP0/CasperYosemite.nbi/i386/mach.macosx --kernelcache tftp://10.120.202.21/NetBoot/NetBootSP0/CasperYosemite.nbi/i386/x86_64/kernelcache --options "rp=nfs:10.120.202.21:/private/tftpboot/NetBoot/NetBootSP0:CasperYosemite.nbi/NetBoot.dmg"

I seem to be able to image approximately 8 machines at once, unicast. More than that and some machines will get stuck. They are logged in as adobeinstaller, but they fall asleep before they can install anything and waking them up doesn't seem to help. The imaging process is stalled for some reason.

The only way around this is to reboot into Recovery mode, Open Terminal, resetpassword and reset the root (System Administrator) password, then restart. They'll stall while logged in as adobeinstaller again and then I can logout, login as root, re-issue the NetBoot command and reboot.

My working hypothesis is that this problem occurs because the NetBoot process is very slow once we have a large number of machines trying to boot unicast. Any suggestions? I could have opened a bug report but thought I would post this publicly to see if anyone else is experiencing the same problem.

My client machines are being imaged as 10.9.5 (block copy from an AutoDMG created image) along with Adobe Creative Cloud 2015 including only the modules we need.

Workflow:

B110 Binding Built-In AD osx_updated_150818-10.9.5-13F34.hfs.dmg DMG Package OS X 3 No No No
Desktop Pattern.dmg DMG Package OS X 4 Yes Yes No
Finder Preferences.dmg DMG Package AdminPkg 4 Yes Yes No
TerminalPrefs.dmg DMG Package AdminPkg 4 Yes Yes No
SAVIN_PS_Printers_Vol3_EXP_LIO_Driver.pkg Apple Package Drivers 5 No No No
default_dockOffice2011_and_CC2015.pkg Apple Package AdminPkg 5 No No No
TextWrangler Prefs.dmg DMG Package Apps 6 Yes Yes Yes
VirusBarrier1.pkg Apple Package Apps 6 No No No
AdminToolBoxMacProLabs.pkg Apple Package AdminPkg 7 No No No
FinalCutExtras.dmg DMG Package AdminPkg 7 Yes Yes No
VirusBarrier2.pkg Apple Package Apps 7 No No No
VirusBarrier3.pkg Apple Package Apps 8 No No No
create_local-1.1.pkg Apple Package AdminPkg 8 No No No
FinalCutUpdates.dmg DMG Package AdminPkg 8 No No No
TextWrangler.dmg DMG Package Apps 9 No No No
InstallersB110.dmg DMG Package Apps 9 No No No
VirusBarrier4-Settings.pkg Apple Package Apps 9 No No No
Apple Final Cut Studio 3 for Mac Labs.pkg Apple Package Apps 9 No No Yes
Audacity.dmg DMG Package Apps 10 No No No
Blender.pkg Apple Package Apps 10 No No No
Custom Remote Desktop Installer.pkg Apple Package AdminPkg 10 No No No
AdobeCC2015forDCAug16_Install.pkg.zip Apple Package Apps 10 No No No
Fetch.dmg DMG Package Apps 10 Yes Yes No
Fiery Express Mac Driver.pkg.zip Apple Package Drivers 10 No No No
FileZilla.dmg DMG Package Apps 10 No No No
Houdini.pkg Apple Package Apps 10 No No No
iMovie.pkg Apple Package Apps 10 No No No
iPhoto.pkg Apple Package Apps 10 No No No
Lame_Library_v3.98.2_for_Audacity.pkg Apple Package AdminPkg 10 No No No
launchdaemons_mac_labs.pkg Apple Package AdminPkg 10 No No No
launchdaemons_postimage.pkg Apple Package AdminPkg 10 No No No
Ricoh_PS_Printers_Vol1_EXP_LIO_Driver.pkg Apple Package Drivers 10 No No No
MatchMover2014.pkg.zip Apple Package Apps 10 No No No
motd.pkg Apple Package AdminPkg 10 No No No
Nuke9.0v7-mac-x86-release-64.pkg.zip Apple Package Apps 10 No No No
Ricoh_PS_Printers_Vol2_EXP_LIO_Driver.pkg Apple Package Drivers 10 No No No
PFTrack 2015.pkg.zip Apple Package Apps 10 No No No
Toon Boom Harmony 12.1 Premium.dmg DMG Package Apps 10 No No No
QuickTimePlayer7.6.6_SnowLeopard.pkg Apple Package Apps 10 No No Yes
Toon Boom Storyboard Pro 4.2.dmg DMG Package Apps 10 No No No
VLC.pkg Apple Package Apps 10 No No Yes
RicohPrinterDrivers.pkg Apple Package Printers 11 No No No
Firefox.dmg DMG Package Apps 11 No No No
Google Chrome.dmg DMG Package Apps 11 No No No
RAWCameraUpdate5-0-7.pkg Apple Package Apple Updates 14 No No No
Acrobat Customized.pkg Apple Package Apps 15 No No No
create_imagemaster-1.0.pkg Apple Package AdminPkg 16 No No No
loginwindow_msg.sh Stored In Database AdminPkg After add_fiery.sh Stored In Database Printers At Reboot enable_ard.sh Stored In Database AdminPkg At Reboot power_set.sh Stored In Database AdminPkg At Reboot

3 REPLIES 3

mpermann
Valued Contributor II

@endor-moon have you tried making a test configuration that includes just your base OS and one package that gets installed at reboot to see if you have the same issue or not? Maybe the issue is being caused by one of your packages. Our workflow with JSS 9.72 and Casper Imaging 9.72 doesn't exhibit this behavior. You can see our workflow in the attached image.1608ae01e796433dbcd15f2f10fd3c1f

endor-moon
Contributor II

Thanks, @mpermann. It is only doing this on 4 out of 15 machines or so, which makes it a low priority. Just wanted to ensure JAMF is aware as a change to their startup scripts may be warranted. I did start my imaging with very few items and built it up slowly. I'm guessing this is the result of slow boot times and sleep mode hitting the machine before the scripts are run but since waking them up doesn't help, there must be more to the problem than just that.

mpermann
Valued Contributor II

@endor-moon take a look at the following link. They are using caffeinate in their first run script to keep the computer awake. I would encourage you to email your TAM about it as well to open a case.