install High Sierra from image ??

tcandela
Valued Contributor II

I created a base install of 10.13.1 and then use disk utility to get the image, then uploaded it to Casper Admin.

has anybody tried this?

is there a problem doing it this way?

i have it in a configuration right now, the configuration running on test computer, all seems normal.

15 REPLIES 15

tcandela
Valued Contributor II

when the computer rebooted i was greeted with the login screen and 2 accounts to login with, the one account i had on the image and the adobe account, i logged in with my admin account and it went to the Jamf splash screen telling me software was installing.

i wonder if i didn't login if the software was installing or not, so i'll test again but this time without logging in

m_donovan
Contributor III

HFS+ or APFS?

RicevilleIT
New Contributor II

I have not done the method you have referenced. I have only tried to use Target Disk Mode Imaging with mixed results at best.

From what I have been told if you are upgrading from a previous OS version 12 and older, it will likely fail or not run reliably, unfortunately I can't recall why this may happen. According to our Apple Engineer for Iowa, You need to utilize a HighSierra Installer, downloaded from App store and installed directly or via the bootable USB method. Also with APFS our Apple engineer told me to boot to recovery mode as it is much quicker since 10.13 is utilizing the same restore structure as with iPads, which is true but not a perfect solution.

I have tried building a couple of images with AutoDMG, using target disk recovery and the install completes on Machines, I have got one base image with OS only to work but have not had luck with adding additional packages, Office, Browsers, etc, in those instances I instead I get the flashing ? of doom. Haven't had the time to dig into why this may be.

Kind of a bummer as it appears the bundling of a preconfigured install package on a device is being phased out by Apple and they are instead opting for DEP and VPP and software policies slamming your network when devices are setup by the users.

tcandela
Valued Contributor II

The image i made was JHFS+ , so you would have to make 2 images, one for JHFS+ and APFS.

I was able to install the 10.13.1 JHFS+ image on an SSD that was formally running 10.13.1 APFS, but the format stayed at JHFS+ on the SSD

I completely wiped the 10.13.1 APFS drive and ran the 10.13.1 JHFS+ config.

I am going to go ahead and create a second image, this one being APFS

I ran the disableicloudpopup.sh on the computer i'm taking the image from, and after imaging a computer and logging in, I get no prompts for icloud etc.. when logging in with new/existing users

leegalan
New Contributor III

@coryschumann I'm interested to know about your AutoDMG workflow. Are you creating an installer with it, or are you setting up a base image?

tcandela
Valued Contributor II

I created an image of 13.3 using autodmg, put it in a config, but it always has an error. I runs it , it looks like it's gonna work but about 75% through an error pops up , so autoDMG looks to not work.

At this point I'm just allowing users to upgrade I removed the upgrade block

leegalan
New Contributor III

I need to wipe computers in a multiuser environment every once in a while. So, I would love to figure this out.

Nix4Life
Valued Contributor

Hi guys,
currently looking at restor to implement with other solutions,and bootstrappr to deal with T2/New hardware until Apple releases something to assist us. Perhaps one or both could help.

L

PatCMP
New Contributor III

@Nix4Life are you able to open restor without getting an error saying "failed to download configuration, unsupported URL" ?

Thanks!

Nix4Life
Valued Contributor

@PatCMP We looked at restor, but did not implement it, so unfortunately I can't help with the error. We did end up going with bootstrappr and Rich T's first boot package install generator. At this client we were able to migrate their DeployStudio Workflow over to a Thin Provisioning workflow that will work and easily be used for a JAMF workflow with minor changes.

leegalan
New Contributor III

By the way, AutoDMG did work for me. I just had to make sure that I was deploying it to a new APFS container by itself. Make sure the restore target is a disk0s3, for example, and not disk0.

tcandela
Valued Contributor II

@leegalan so you had a configuration with just the autodmg created image? no other stuff was added to the configuration? and the target drive is SSD type?

leegalan
New Contributor III

I did a config with just the AutoDMG image with nothing else. I used that for creating my modified restore partition. Then I had a configuration with all the apps and enrollment info. Seems like it worked. The macOS version is 10.13.3.

tcandela
Valued Contributor II

@leegalan I am trying that right now with an image created from autoDMG 10.13.3. (apfs) with just a single script at reboot to add a local admin account.

I am booted to a usb with casper imaging on it and the target SSD is disk0. (250GB ssd)

so you partitioned your disk to get it to disk0s3 ? are you using the whole drive space?

leegalan
New Contributor III

I partition the drive, which adds a new container with a volume that I call "Restore". With Casper Imaging, I deploy a bare-bones macOS 10.13.3 APFS created with AutoDMG. I configure the Casper Imaging session to add a local admin account. That worked for me. Casper Imaging 10.0.0.