i5 macbook pro will not netboot

[donmontalvo]

Hi John,

First, I'm very, very jealous. My new laptop is only an i5. :(

Thanks for outlining the procedure. The steps you outlined below (echoed by Steve Wood and some others on the main Casper list) worked like a charm. I hope JAMF creates a new KB article since I was one of several people who were bit by the new i5/i7 NetBoot issue. :)

Thanks,
Don

[#2]

For those wanting to use the provided Casper NetInstall Creator...Here's
how I was able to make a universal NetInstall.j

1. Start the i5/i7 machine in target disk mode and connect it to another machine.
2. Run the 10.6.4 Combo Updater on the i5/i7 machine.
3. Make a dmg of the i5/i7 machine with Disk Utility.
4. Drop the fresh unbooted dmg into the NetInstall Creator, select your Imaging app, and click go.

It's been working like a charm here!

I'm sure this would actually work with any machine now that the 10.6.4
Combo Updater is involved. I'm using 1 OS image in my configurations to
boot everything now!

Bob

[Bukira]

you could also replace stage 3 with composer, thats how i build my OS dmg's

Criss

Criss Myers
Senior Customer Support Analyst (Mac Services)
iPhone / iPad Developer
Apple Certified Technical Coordinator v10.5
LIS Development Team
Adelphi Building AB28
University of Central Lancashire
Preston PR1 2HE
Ex 5054
01772 895054

[donmontalvo]

Hi Bob,

I remember having problems if the "other machine" isn't also an i5/i7. The key to John's (and Steve's) instructions was that the image creation process had to be done while booted from the new hardware. Once they explained that and I followed their lead, I was able to create new NetBoot, BaseImage and Restore images that worked across all hardware.

Don

[jwojda]

One problem in using an image from the latest hardware is that the
drivers sometimes get confused. Especially if you built from a laptop
and install to a desktop. (Ex. we imaged a MacPro with an image from a
MacBook Pro i7 and found that the 2nd NIC on the MacPro was installed as
an AirPort device).

Just something to think about, if something as simple as a NIC can get
confuzzled, what else can?

John Wojda

Lead System Engineer, CTS

3333 Beverly Rd. B2-338B

Hoffman Estates, IL 60179

Phone: (847)286-7855

SMS / Text Page: 2245873298

Team Lead: Chris Sta Ana

[donmontalvo]

Boot cruft I guess. During the imaging process, we remove all ports but Ethernet. When we image laptops or desktops, any other interfaces (en1, fw0, etc.) need to be manually added.

It would be great if Casper can scan available ports and add to Network prefs pane after imaging. :)

Don

[#7]

You might see if the networksetup binary would be of use as a post image script run for the hardware

[#8]

To get around this problem, we've had good success with issuing this command in a script after reboot to add back all the network interfaces:

networksetup -detectnewhardware

[donmontalvo]

Nice...I'd like to test this so we can implement, since we just
recreated our image to support the new Macs. Does this look right?
Would this be run with a priority like 20 or so at imaging time? Don

------------- start -------------

#!/bin/bash
#
# auto detect and repopulate network ports after reimaging

/usr/sbin/networksetup -detectnewhardware

exit 0;

------------- end --------------

[#10]

That looks correct. The priority is set to "At Reboot", so it will set it
once the machine is booted into the OS. I've never tried running it during
Casper Imaging.

[tlarkin]

If you do a pristine install of OS X it should detect all your hardware ports because it acts like a clean retail install, correct? If not the networksetup binary can be used, and I use it in my post image scripts.

[RobertHammen]

Can also delete /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/NetworkInterfaces.plist from your master image.
On Jul 13, 2010, at 12:46 PM, Thomas Larkin wrote:
Network locations are stored in /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/preferences.plist, FYI.

[#13]

Hello All.

I just had an issue trying to image an i7 Macbook Pro. The machine would not complete its netboot - it would just sit at the Apple logo. Here's what I had to do to get it to boot into the casper image.

Create a new base disk image: Take an un-booted machine (MacOS Core i7 cleanly installed from CD) Boot into target disk mode and from another machine, install 10.6.4 combo over it (installer –pkg /path/to/update –target /volumes/path/todisk)

Create bootable Casper Imagaing NBI: Start with the above image Run Casper Netinstall image Creator (from casper resource-kit) to convert image for NBI imaging use Put the .nbi up on the netboot server.

You should now be able to boot this nbi. It will auto launch the Casper imaging app.