High Sierra Distribution

[agetz]

Hey everyone,
I have been testing High Sierra a bit and am looking at what our distribution is going to look like for the next school year. We have several thousand macs that have historically been taken up at the end of the school year, re-imaged with the latest OS, and then redistributed in the fall. With APFS that doesn't work any more so I am looking at other methods. This past summer we used thin imaging and depended on the JSS to deliver everything so I think we are on the right track. I am just wondering what the best and most efficient way for turning devices around is going to be now. Apple can't expect us to wipe, format to APFS, and then full install 10.13 on all our devices can they?

[cwaldrip]

I'm currently a sourpuss, so take my comments with a grain of salt.

Yes, yes Apple can. Apparently they believe that all of their users have broadband access. You may want to look into DEP is what I keep coming back around to. But that doesn't work for us because many of our users don't have broadband, so a reimage would be painful (hundreds of hours).

[chriscollins]

Wiping and restoring with the latest Deploy Studio and using AutoDMG which now supports APFS images works for us.

[easyedc]

There's a few threads about this, but I've got a workflow gleamed from this thread here that seems to be working with an image created as APFS using AutoDMG with the following command:

# asr restore -s /Users/ME/APFS Base Image.dmg -t /dev/diskY --erase

I'm actively working through this workflow to see what works/breaks/doesn't by using this. Since Apple's own KB's state that imaging doesn't work for x, y, and z scenario, but sort of leaves out the Erase and Image with a prebuilt, I'm going on the assumption that will work for the time being to get me through this hump. For me the biggest hurdle is getting the target drive wiped cleanly every time to identify the target diskY.