Imaging remote or off-site computers

[Kedgar]

Hello,

I would like to know how you can image a computer that is either not at a site that has a distribution point, or a computer that may not be on the internal network. I can sync an external drive with Casper Admin... in the past I have taken that drive and put up a temporary dist point at the particular site. I was wondering if there was a better/different way to do this and image disk to disk rather than over the network.

Thank you,
Ken Edgar

[tlarkin]

We built a mobile imaging station of a mac mini that can be deployed locally by a person and mass image machines. I got pics on my blog but I gotta reformat it, so not going to post a link until I fix it

[Kedgar]

Thomas, you just set the mini up as a temporary dist point then?

[tlarkin]

We attached a mini to the back of a LCD monitor and gave it to two roaming techs. They have a router and a switch as well. They go to the site and jack the router into a network drop, and run everything off their portable 24port gig switch. Then in the JSS I have the VLAN set as a network segment and those clients have auto run data to pull from that mobile mini. So, they can basically drop into any location, run cables from clients into our switch and netboot an entire lab of iMacs into the mini and image them. They do about 50 iMacs an hour off that mini with data throughput from the gig switch. The router keeps everything on it's own little VLAN, so no matter where they go, they are always in the same subnet range.

Once I fix my blog I will post the link and show you the pics of how the mini mounted to the monitor.

[Kedgar]

Very cool idea!

[stevewood]

Make the external drive a bootable drive. Put your Casper tools on there,
On Fri, Jul 30, 2010 at 11:42 AM, Kenneth Edgar <ken.edgar at gmail.com> wrote:
including your distribution point sync, boot the computer from that drive
and then use Casper Imaging directly from that external drive.

I haven't done it myself, but that should work.

Steve Wood
Director of IT
swood at integer.com

The Integer Group | 1999 Bryan St. | Ste. 1700 | Dallas, TX 75201
T 214.758.6813 | F 214.758.6901 | C 940.312.2475

[Kedgar]

I thought this would work too, but where in Casper imaging to you point to the dist point sync as the repository for imaging? I'll play with it today, I haven't looked at it in a bit

Thanks!

[Kedgar]

I thought this would work too, but where in Casper imaging to you point to the dist point sync as the repository for imaging? I've been playing with it today, but have yet to figure it out.

Thanks,
Ken

[dkucmierz]

Just did this to image media labs in our high schools.

Pages 116-117 in Casper Admin Guide PDF:

Replicating FireWire or USB Drives
You can use Casper Admin to make packages, scripts, printers, and configurations available for Casper Imaging offline by:
? Replicating to an external drive ? Using the replicated drive offline
Step 1: Replicating to an External Drive
1 Open Casper Admin.
116
2 Drag the hard drive icon from the Finder to the sidebar in Casper Admin. If the external drive is already under the Local Drives heading in the sidebar it is already
replicated and is mounted automatically when you open Casper Admin. 3 Select the hard drive in the sidebar and click the Replicate button.
Step 2: Using the Replicated Drive Offline
1 Make a copy of the Caper Imaging application. 2 Put the copy at the root of the replicated drive at the same level as the Packages, Scripts, and
Casper Data folders. 3 Open Casper Imaging.

--

David Kucmierz
Mesquite ISD Technical Services
972.882.5506

[Kedgar]

Thanks David!!! I must have missed the part about placing the Casper Imaging app within the repository. This is a life-saver... I just tested and it works as advertised.

Thanks again!

[tlarkin]

sorry for the late reply....

Here is our "Mini-Mobile-Imaging-Machine." I use a router with it, so no matter where I take it, it is on it's own subnet (network segment in Casper) and I can always just do quick auto run data edits on the labs we are imaging. We use this for labs that have no distribution point locally in their building. Just haul that out here with a 48 port switch and you can image whole labs in no time, with out breaking down the computer lab

http://tlarkin.com/blog/new-way-use-mac-mini

I think the whole process of taking it, setting it up, netboot and imaging is faster than doing drive to drive imaging and well we really cannot image over the WAN. So the mobile imaging unit was the answer for us. It is set up in the JSS as a server/distribution point as well as a netboot server. Then when I need to prestage or edit auto run data to run that lab I do so and set it for the mobile unit. It is always on the same subnet since I bring out a router with it. That way you never have to configure anything but auto run data.

-Tom