Full disk backup via Self Service & Prestage

[andyinindy]

Guys:

I am trying to build a Self Service job that will do the following:

1. End user selects my "full disk backup" task
2. A prestage job is populated with the serial number or MAC address of the user's machine
3. Machine is netbooted into Casper Imaging and runs my backup script via my prestage job
4. Machine is rebooted and the user goes on his or her merry way

I have the backup script ready to go, and I have added it to my prestage job. However, I am stumped as to how I can populate the prestage job with the MAC/serial of the machine via a self service job. Is there any way to automate this, or do MAC/serials have to be manually copied/pasted into the prestage job?

Maybe I am barking up the wrong tree here... any advice/alternate approaches would be greatly appreciated.

TIA,

--Andy

[tlarkin]

Andy,

I could see this being a possibility but do you really want end users netbooting? What current methods do you use for data back up and recovery?

thanks
Tom

[andyinindy]

Tom:

Yes, we gave this a bit more thought and realized that doing this via self-service didn't make much sense (we figured that they would never run the job for us).

Our new approach is that we would add the end users' machine to a run-once policy that does the following:

1. Creates a dummy file/token in /Users/Shared
2. Netboots the machine into our Casper imaging image

Once the machine is netbooted, a launchd job kicks off that checks for the presence of our dummy file. If it is present, it begins the following sequence:

1. Display a full-screen message indicating that a backup is in progress
2. Kills Casper Imaging (we auto-launch it at login)
3. Creates a mount point and uses mount_afp to mount our storage
4. Uses hdiutil to create a full-disk backup of the machine's internal HD
5. Removes the dummy file
6. Reboots to the internal HD

Still working the bugs out, but it seems like this is going to work. The cool part is that we can then mount the full-disk backup on a different Mac and use Migration Assistant to move their data over, all without any downtime for the end user.

Wish me luck...

--Andy

[#4]

Andy:

Did you ever get this process up and working? Would like to pick your brain on it and hopefully get a solution that works in my environment.

--Elmer

[#5]

Andy:

Did you ever get this process up and working? Would like to pick your brain on it and hopefully get a solution that works in my environment.

--Elmer