This only really applies if you have the same environment that I do. If
you could compile every smart configuration into a compiled image, and
have the HD space on the servers to store it, then that would be ideal.
That would keep it simple. I wanted to be different and have one
compiled image as a base for every mac in my enterprise. So, I compiled
an image with every piece of software that should be standard across the
board (10.5.8, Office, iLife 09, etc etc), but I also had assessment
testing software that is building specific, so it could not be compiled.
The first way was post image scripts with manual trigger policies to
install that software, but I don't want to maintain like 40 scripts, so
I wanted to do smart configurations.
So, I am a special case, and I have limited HD space on my servers so I
didn't want to compile 40 images nor did I want to maintain that many
scripts and I didn't want to mess with post image policies because I
need it to be on there standard. Since the developer of said product
requires that I hard code the full path of the network share for the
testing database in the application, I have to create many different
revisions of the same package.
However, this work around can be a nice way of doing this and it makes
it easy. It works, it is fast, and it is not much different than what
Casper already does, it just does it in a different fashion really.
-Tom
