Lion Netboot Server sharing Snow Leapard clients

[chrisw]

Hi, I am new the Casper and Lion server. I created a 10.6.8 netboot image. I uploaed it to our 10.7.4 Netboot server. When I open the System Image Utility it fails to locate the mounted 10.6.8 dmg file. Message in SIU is "Invalid source volume found". I have read that you cannot share a 10.6.8 image on a 10.7.4 Netboot server. Is this true? Any assistance is appreciated.

[jhalvorson]

System Image Utility is used to capture the NetBoot image. I don't think you want to open the dmg with SIU.

To begin hosting the 10.6.8 netboot image, which consists of the "nameofimage.nbi" folder, you need to drop that entire folder into /Library/NetBoot/NetBootSPO

Then use Server Admin.app (an extra download for Lion server) to enable NetBoot Services.

[NickKoval]

Lion can host a 10.6 NetBoot image, it just can't make them. System Image Utility, part of the Server Admin tools, is version locked to the OS. You can only create a 10.6 NetBoot image by using the 10.6 Server tools on a computer running Mac OS X 10.6.X. The same with Lion, If you are going to make a lion NetBoot image from a .dmg, you need to be on a computer running Mac OS X 10.7 using the Lion Server Tools.

Once on the corresponding computer with the correct tools, open System Image Utility and mount the .dmg you wish to make a NetBoot image.

Jason H (halvorson) is correct that once you have the .nbi file you can place it onto your net boot folder (default is /Library/NetBoot/NetBootSP0) and enable it using Server Admin.

[chrisw]

Thank you for responding. After the SL dmg is copied to the Lion Netboot server I mount the SL dmg file. There is no nbi file created. I was able to create the nbi file on an older SL server that I configured for Netboot. Just to verify my understanding. I guess I have to use the SL Netboot server to create the nbi file then copy it to Lion server NetbootSP0 folder? Then I can use Lion SIU?

[ayoffe · Accepted solution]

SIU takes your DMG and uses it to make a .NBI file. This needs to happen on a machine running the same Major OS release as the DMG you want to use for NetBoot.

Once you run SIU on a 10.6 machine, it will generate a .NBI file. If you want to use the Lion server to serve the 10.6 NetBoot Image, you need to copy the .NBI file outputted by SIU in 10.6 to the 10.7 server to the path referenced above.

Open Server Admin and connect to the 10.7 Server, go to the NetBoot tab, Settings -> Images, and enabled the NBI you just copied.

Do not bother opening SIU on the 10.7 machine if your NetBoot set is 10.6 based. SIU running in Lion will only work with 10.7 bootable volumes.

[chrisw]

Ok. Thank you very much. I will not use SIU in Lion. The Lion Netboot will pick up the nbi file automatically.