How are we suppose to image the "New Macbook"

[#1]

Image over USB, Wireless? shudders

USB-C port with support for:
Charging
USB 3.1 Gen 1 (up to 5 Gbps)
Native DisplayPort 1.2 video output
VGA output using USB-C VGA Multiport Adapter (sold separately)
HDMI video output using USB-C Digital AV Multiport Adapter (sold separately)

http://www.apple.com/macbook/specs/

[mm2270]

I don't know the exact build, but one of our Apple reps already confirmed for us that they are running a different build than the 10.10.2 retail version, so it means building a new base image... once again.

[jcarr]

Imaging is dead.

Business

Education

[Simmo]

@jcarr That's nice, if you live in the USA.

[jcarr]

Good point, @Matt.Sim.

My post was somewhat tongue-in-cheek. Sorry I forgot to close my </tongueincheek> tag. :)

Seriously though, I'm sure DEP will be coming to more and more countries. Also, given where this new MacBook fits into the product lineup, it is squarely aimed at the consumer market. For the foreseeable future, in most cases EDU will likely stick with the MacBook Air for the price point, and PRO users will want the capabilities of the MacBook Pro.

[adamcodega]

Don't forget though, DEP is available in Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, and United States.

Again, Apple designs for the user not for the market.

Every time something new comes out we race to say why we can't use it, instead of asking if it can help us. Look at the iPad, and what it did for slow, clunky, HEAVY, 15" laptop carts with 90 second login times because "it needs to be joined to the domain".

I'm wicked excited to see what the MacBook does at blending Air and Pro features. I'm about ready to buy one myself except I don't like using a system that's different from what my users use, and we like the simplicity and consistency of the Air.

[nessts]

DEP sounds cool, but if you work in a big enough company good luck getting the right legal people to care enough to fill out the forms so you can get enrolled properly. I spent a couple of weeks on it when they released it and have not had time to chase that down again. And then can you enroll all of your existing computers in it?
I am sure DEP is a discussion for another thread.

About the "New" MacBook how new is it other than the part forcing you to buy all new cables and adapters, having a slower processor, but it has turbo, I remember my first 286 that had a turbo button. The new touch pad sounds interesting but so what. They have not posted the actual spec of the wifi card, is it still a consumer level card that lets Bluetooth disrupt its networking capabilities? In all reality its just another laptop that comes in 3 colors now. I would be more excited about fixing all the enterprise type bugs and instabilities and getting anywhere close to how stable 10.6.8 was. Although the localhost renaming bug is fixed in the latest 10.10.3 seed and I was quite happy about that yesterday.

here I go rambling about stuff only slightly relevant to the discussion.

[JPDyson]

If I had to do it in my current environment, I might craft an imaging process around a combination of Self Service and/or custom policy triggers. Essentially, you could create a whole mess of policies which are all triggered by a single custom policy trigger, and in order to "image" one of these, you'd:

1. Enroll (DEP, quick-add, /enroll page, whatever)
2. sudo jamf policy -trigger GoldOnMyMacbook 2a. If you want, create a Self Service policy (scoped to your imagers) which runs the above command
3. Make a sammich

Rebuilds are going to depend on either having access to Internet recovery or an OS installer on some external USB storage, but I tend to keep one, so NBD. Once the OS is re-installed, start over.

A bit more about the policies - I'd create a category just for this set of policies, so that they're visually separated in the policy page. I'd alphabetize them where it really mattered in what order they run, including something like "zzz - Recon" at the end (obviously not running recon on every policy). I've also created a launchdaemon that does (among other things) a recon, in cases where I need it to occur after a reboot.

[chriscollins]

I remember when the first air came out and everyone was losing their mind how slow it was, how little ports it had, etc, etc. and everyone somehow survived. And now everyone is like "I hope they don't get rid of the Air".

[JPDyson]

Apple has telegraphed their move; this is the third time in recent memory that they've done it! The Air came out as expensive and niche, but it got cheaper and obviated the old Macbook. The Retina came out as expensive and niche, but it got cheaper and obviated the old Macbook Pro. Now the Macbook is here as the clear replacement for the Air. It's expensive and niche, but it'll get cheaper, and it'll obviate the Air.

[#11]

I don't have a ZOMG MUST HAVE reaction to this machine, personally, but I can't wait to get my hands on a few and hand them to my road-warrior users, new dongles and all.

Now, if they can just get iTunes' Wifi synching to work reliably..

[Zvordauk]

Has anyone considered that this MacBook has an 802.11ac chip in it?
I know wide spread AC adoption is in its very early stages (I am lucky enough to be in a position to direct policy in our organisation and have insisted on AC as part of any upgrade).
But given that most devices are still put in the hands of IT to prep before deployment surely a single AC point in the lab will give Gigabit wireless. Far better than the current Apple 10/100 USB-Ethernet and will allow those who have NetBoot based methodologies to continue doing what they do.

[davidacland]

That's a good point @Zvordauk. 802.11ac will certainly help with the speed. The Apple USB Ethernet adapters seem to give a false sense of connectivity but in reality they are way too slow.

In some cases we still use Casper imaging on the boot volume just to get a set of default apps deployed. I'm a fan of policies but if there are 20 apps to deploy and you want it done quickly, a casper imaging config is a good way to go.

I try to direct policy at our place but no-one listens ;).

On a side note, we've had a few performance issues with 802.11ac using Meru kit in a few schools. Meru seemed to be having some financial difficulties so support wasn't there to get to the bottom of it. Older Macs with 802.11n cards were fine.

[yellow]

Our institution already has 6 on order (<sigh>)..
Currently I'm trying to work on a mix of techs creating a standard login account by hand & a customized quickadd package to try and kick off a specific build policy.
HAHAHA. Yes, I am not well.

[gachowski]

I have been able to to image them with usb to ethernet. It is very very slow...

C

Our imaging process.
1. wipe and install X.10.3
2. netboot and run Casper imaging -auto reboot
3. user logs in and config script runs

[Simmo]

@gachowski Why are you wiping and re-installing the OS? They should already have a clean install os Yosemite on there.

[calumhunter]

Our institution already has 6 on order (<sigh>).. Currently I'm trying to work on a mix of techs creating a standard login account by hand & a customized quickadd package to try and kick off a specific build policy. HAHAHA. Yes, I am not well.

1. put quickadd on usb stick.
2. take machine out of box, boot to recovery HD.
3. install quick add package via terminal

installer -pkg /Volumes/USB_Stick/QuickAdd.pkg -target /Volumes/Macintosh HD

Reboot let the quickadd take care of the rest via policies.

no need to log in and create cruft on the machine

[gachowski]

@Matt

We have locations that can install on top the factory build and some that can't. No idea why and kinda hard to troubleshoot. We also have a location that sometimes it works and sometimes it fails, very strange..... A netinstall of the OS take about 20 mins and it can be pre-done so it's not a big deal. We got the MacBook just for testing : ) and most likely will not support them as the are more expensive the Air.

That is also how I test and build the "build" so it's kind the easiest approach.

I would love to let the user login to the factory OS or DEP. However we bind our Macs to AD and there is no easy way that I know of to control that 1st local account that is created.

C

[Simmo]

http://9to5mac.com/2015/05/23/review-kanex-usb-c-gigabit-ethernet-adapter/

There is at least one USB-C to Ethernet adapter out there now.

[adamcodega]

The Kanex failed for netbooting, I have a colleague who's trying a different USB 3.0 network adapter with Google's USB-C USB-A adapter, should get results this week.

[ImAMacGuy]

@adamcodega well crud.. i ordered mine a couple days before you posted that, my kanex should be here today or tomorrow :|

[dstranathan]

I ordered this USB ethernet adapter from Amazon: http://amzn.to/1EuUN3L

It works great. I can NetBoot with it just fine. The (3) USB 2.0 ports come in handy too. Seems to power my LaCie USB diagnostics rugged drive OK.

I just got my first production MacBook 12" (early 2015). Base model. 256GB SSD, USB-C, Retina, Space Gray, etc. The MacBook shipped with OS X 10.10.3 (14D136).

Now the bad news:

When I try and image the MacBook, DeployStudio 1..6.12 complains that "No disks were found". None of my erase/image workflows will run (even manual workflows). Command line standard output from distill says "invalid target!"

When I run Apple Disk Utility.app, I can see the Apple SSD with no problems. No matter how I carve-up the SSD, DeployStudio can't see the physical disk or any of its logical partitions. Im using GUID partition maps, HFS+ format etc. Nothing fancy here.

My NetBoot .nbi set is also running OS X 10.3.3 (14D136) - which is compatible with the MacBook 12" (2015) hardware.

Is this a known issue? I'm on DS 1.6.12. Two minor versions behind current. Would DeployStudio 1.6.15 resolve this issue? The DS documents don't mention this as a known issue.

I don't have Casper Suite yet, so Im using DeployStudio for my imaging.

[MikeF]

I just ordered a kanex. I may be returning it. Wish I had read this post first.

But I can netbook with the apple hdmi connector and using the apple usb-ethernet connectors also.

[apanages]

I have been working on 5 of these devices at work for the past few weeks and they have been driving me crazy. The only way I could get NetBoot to work was to use the old school USB-Ethernet adapter. The Kanex will not work pre-boot/pre-login to load a mobile account. The Kanex only works once you log into the device which defeats the purpose of having it in the first place. I have emailed the company to see what they have to say about this.

Current work around:
1. USB-Ethernet
2. Let sit for about 10-15 min to boot into netboot if not longer.
3. Let it image take even longer.

I talked to a technician at the Apple Store and he informed me that they have a USB-C to Ethernet there onsite for their staff to use but they do not have any plans on marketing it or allowing companies to rent/borrow it.

[cbrewer]

FWIW - I just tried this adapter from Anker. It also failed for NetBoot.

[JamesJhoung]

I just finished testing this adapter, does not work for NetBoot either.

http://www.amazon.com/Tronsmart-Gigabit-Ethernet-Network-Adapter/dp/B013WT8PSY

[MikeF]

These work
Apple USB Ethernet Adapter and USB-C to USB Adapter
or if you have wireless available

[cwaldrip]

@MikeF I think the issue with the Apple adaptors was that they're only 10/100... not 10/100/1000, so imaging is very slow.

[yellow]

I ended up building a manual process to have it done over wireless. It works... it's faster than using the USB to Ethernet adapter, but it's still not very fast. Techs prefer the ethernet approach because they can think less. :-)

[eddiel0w]

@yellow do you mind sharing the wifi imaging workflow?

[yellow]

RAW Version (with some snark, from our internal wiki)

• Unbox & plug it into power
• Boot it up and go through the initial steps of manual configuration. Things to be conscious of are:
• Don't bother setting up Wi-Fi during this process. If you needed proof these devices were not fit for enterprise use, you can enter an SSID, and an password.. but where do I enter the username? You can put info in and let it fail, but it's faster to just skip it.
• Choose the "Other Network Options" button and select "My computer does not connect to the Internet". Continue, etc.
• Don't transfer any information now (how could you, anyway?)
• Eventually you get to a point where you are asked to create a user. This is IMPORTANT, so please pay attention.
• Full name: macbook
• Account name: macbook
• Password: it can be whatever you want, but you'll NEED the password soon so make it something you'll remember!
• Once you're done with the config process, you'll be dropped into the Desktop of OS X.
• Rename the Mac to match the enterprise device ID naming scheme. It's going to be hard for you to fix that after the fact. Do it now!
• Open System Preferences
• Sharing preference pane
• Change the "Computer Name:" field to equal the enterprise device ID naming scheme... I will hunt you down if I see "macbook's MacBook" in Casper. I don't need to be more specific than this. If you can't figure out what it's supposed to be named, you should be ashamed of yourself.
• Hit Return & the name should be changed.
• Fix the Energy Saver settings
• Open System Preferences
• Energy Saver prefpane
• Check or Make sure "Prevent computer from sleeping automatically when the display is off" is checked!
• Uncheck or Make sure "Put hard disks to sleep when possible" is not checked.
• Configure Wi-Fi
• You're still in System Preferences, right? If not, open them back up
• Go to the Network preference pane
• Select Wi-Fi
• From the Network Name select bar, choose Join Other Network...
• From here, set up access to our secure Wi-Fi as normal, using your own AD credentials to connect to Wi-Fi. - Don't worry, this "macbook" account gets nuked as part of the 'imaging process'.
• Wi-Fi should be configured and have a valid IP address now.
• Close System Preferences
• Open Safari
• Go to <insert your manual enrollment URL here>
• You should be presented with a login screen for Casper enrollment.
• Enter your own AD credentials to login
• If you know the AD username of the end user, "assign" it to them, otherwise, "assign" it to your own AD username (it checks).
• Click the Magnifying Glass icon to search AD. This part can take a little while as it polls AD and plumbs for the userid of your choice of assignments. Be patient!
• Click Enroll
• Click Download
• An installation package call "Enterprise-CasperEnrollment.pkg" will be downloaded to the Downloads folder. - The spoke will keep running on the web page, move onto step 9h.
• Open the Downloads folder and run the .pkg to install.
• If you're curious what is happening, Command-L will bring up the installation log and you can change the select bar to "Show All Logs"
• When it's all done, and audibly indicates so, the Self Service app should open automagically. If you close it accidentally, you can get back to it by being in the Finder and using the Command-Shift-a key-combo to open the Applications folder. The Self Service app is in there.
• Log into Self Service with your AD credentials.
• Follow these steps in order.. note that you can click on them and they will queue up.
• Run the "Install Software Updates" policy first.
• Note: You may need to restart the Mac before you move onto the config portion below.
• If you're prompted to restart, I'd suggest doing that first and then returning to the steps below. You'll get better results and waste less time in case something goes belly up in the middle of your ordeal/adventure imaging process.
• Run the "Wireless Access" policy second. This will download and install the profile for Wi-Fi.
• Go to the "Casper" section and run "Config This Mac". This has been problematic off and on. Clicking a policy does nothing.
• Stand back! Honestly, this will be slow. It's running over Wi-Fi and pulling down and installing 10s of gigs of DMGs, PKGs, and scripts to config this thing over something that should be done via ethernet.
• Unfortunately I missed the finish of the process and the Mac went to sleep and it was locked to the "macbook" user. However I couldn't login because that user was nuked. So I hard-rebooted and was able to login with my own AD credentials.
• Login with your management account (or another admin account, doesn't matter)
• Do the rest of what you'd normally do.
• You should be done.

The "Config This Mac" is basically

1. all the packages & scripts that I install as part of imaging from Casper Imaging (This is the most irritating part as you have to wade through a whole load of packages to find/remove/update new things you add. Assuming you remember to do that in the first place!)
2. Install all available SWUs
3. Delete the "macbook" account
4. Bind to AD
5. Reboot

I'm sure there is a better way to do this, but at the time I needed to come up with a solution and I don't revisit this if I don't have to (read: if it ain't broke, don't fix it).

Hope this helps.

[calumhunter]

Wow!

What a BOFH!

If you don't like your job or your users, do everyone a favour and leave.

[gachowski]

@calumhunter

Is that in the helpful spirit of Jamf Nation? There is a good chance that Jacques didn't design the work flow...

C

[calumhunter]

It was aimed at who ever wrote the workflow

Some classics from the above workflow if you didn't spend the time to read it:

If you needed proof these devices were not fit for enterprise use

Don't transfer any information now (how could you, anyway?)

I will hunt you down if I see "macbook's MacBook" in Casper. I don't need to be more specific than this. If you can't figure out what it's supposed to be named, you should be ashamed of yourself.

You'll get better results and waste less time in case something goes belly up in the middle of your ordeal/adventure imaging process.

Really if thats the attitude you have towards your users...... glad I don't work there.

IT is there to support and help users to do their jobs. Work with your users don't bitch and moan and quite simply don't be BOFH with attitude - this is why there is still such a stigma around of working in IT.

Most of those issues simply are because the admin who wrote that workflow doesn't have the skills or creativity to solve a lot of those problems. Much of that could be automated or an app/webapp created utilising the JSS API to make life easier for the user and reduce the workflow/workload for the end user so only a handful of clicks and inputing information into a nice friendly form

But whatever.....

[jimlee]

I agree with calum. This is either a troll or the guy that created this workflow doesn't know what he's doing and should reach out to someone that does.

[cwaldrip]

From the very first line...

RAW Version (with some snark, from our internal wiki)

(emphasis mine)

This is obviously not meant for the end user, but for support staff.

I've been known to put some snark into info for my coworkers as well - because there's only five of us (it was four for about 8 years until recently). The way I write for my coworkers v. the way I write for end users is completely different. And we don't know what the work environment is. An internet startup is going to have different levels of acceptability between support and users than say... IBM.

So, without the facts, and realizing that I'm not here to chastise anyone, I'll just accept the workflow that was provided and use my common sense to ignore the snark and move along.

[yellow]

This is obviously not meant for the end user, but for support staff.

Thanks, yes, this was for my peers who appreciate my snark and find it very amusing. I posted this workflow, as requested, to help other admins who face a similar issue and want to get something working right away. I never indicated it was the best or only way to do it, it is just one way that works. The whole point of these forums is to share information and adopt and/or build upon other's experiences and work.

For those that vilified me, particularly @calumhunter, thanks for judging me so harshly whilst knowing nothing about me or what I do.

These devices are wholly inappropriate in the enterprise I work in (Teaching Hospital with 40,000 employees), which is already a significant Windows world. As such, there's no point in me putting oodles of time and effort into creating something uber-fancy for a device that we get about 1 in 65 times a Mac comes through the door, that is called "economy of scale". In the end, the users that order these devices will get and use them in a timely manner. How we get them imaged and "enterprised" is of zero concern to them... they absolutely do not care. They just want their MacBook USB-C. So this workflow has worked for us, and I get to move onto more pressing matters.

[AVmcclint]

Internal snark can be a healthy way to blow off steam or to make a painful process bearable. Of course it does all depend on how free you are to share your snark among your teammates. (I have worked in environments where it was all business all the time... no time for jokes or smiles.) What the end users see will no doubt be smiles and warm greetings while behind the scenes, we have to deal with design and engineering decisions by Apple that seem to go out of their way to make our lives difficult. As I read the workflow posted by @yellow I knew exactly where it was coming from and the intended audience. It has nothing to do with hating your job, it's about sharing in the inside jokes that we all have. I like to see JAMFnation as another level of internal discussions. We have our own inside jokes and shared pains that no one outside of these forums would get - and that's OK.

[Kaltsas]

These devices are wholly inappropriate in the enterprise I work in (Teaching Hospital with 40,000 employees)

We'll have to agree to disagree on this. But our hospital only has 8600 employees, perhaps the environment and workflows are different at that scale.

[cbrewer]

I just received a Dell DBQBCBC064 USB-C Gigabit Ethernet adapter and it works for NetBooting a 2016 MacBook Pro.

[gachowski]

@cbrewer

Thank you very much !!!!

C