mavericks netboot image

[franton]

Anyone had any issues creating a 10.9 net boot image? I ask because System Image Utility on any OS is refusing to accept my .dmg as a valid source.

[daz_wallace]

Is your OS you are using to build the netboot (and run System Image utility) on Mavericks too?

To create a netboot set, the netboot image and the netboot creator OS need to be the same version. Been true since at least 10.4.x I'm afraid.

Hope that helps

Darren

[nessts]

Correct, run SIU on a 10.9 box and it works fine serving from linux or from Mac servers

[franton]

Yes. Same OS version. It won't recognize the disk image.

Process is as follows:

Install OS X from fresh onto a computer
Customise for our particular needs. Similar to JAMF kb article.
Reboot to usb based recovery partition.
Capture with Disk Utility.
Reinstall OS X on the computer.
Prep image with System Image Utility. (this is where I get stuck).
Any other customizations and general image shrinkage.
Upload to test server and test.
Upload to main servers for out of hours syncing.

[hkim]

Here's an interesting article about NetBoot and Mavericks and some changes, some of them quite awesome. http://enterprisemac.bruienne.com/?p=208

[ClassicII]

^ thanks for that link!

[franton]

Unless i'm doing something radically wrong here, 10.9 SIU doesn't accept self created DMGs anymore. Two clean installs, same issue.

[jshall]

You're not alone ... I'm having the same issue. Hopefully someone who has been successful with doing this in Mavericks will chime in!

[neilashdown]

I have just put a clean install in a mac mini, when I target disk the machine I only get firewire as a option to connect and not thunderbolt??? any answers as I can make an image in the first place. I have an identical mac mini with 10.8.5 and it's fine in thunderbolt

[nessts]

my process that i followed is as such. I have a MBPR installed 10.9 customized, shut down and booted into target disk mode
connected to a 15"MBP via thunderbolt with a 10.9 seed installed
ran SIU saved the contents to the linux server edited dhcpd.conf
netbooted all of my lab machines and they all booted just fine.

[neilashdown]

that seems fine but my puzzle is why do I not get the thunderbolt option when in target disk mode only firewire?

[neilashdown]

that seems fine but my puzzle is why do I not get the thunderbolt option when in target disk mode only firewire?

[nessts]

I don't have a mini so i cannot begin to guess why. do you have other hardware if so just start over on the new hardware. heck boot the mini normally, attach a USB drive and use CCC to backup the current running OS, then run SIU on the mini to make an image from the USB disk.

[franton · Accepted solution]

Hrm, my work colleague James may have found a way of doing it. It seems that it's possible to click "customize" button, then manually specify the mounted dmg. Has to be in the format of /Volumes/Macintosh HD 1

[jshall]

I have tried booting target disk mode (via thunderbolt) from my MBP to my iMAC (both running 10.9). My iMac sees the Macintosh HD, and I am even able to make an image of that through Disk Utility, and scan the image for restore. Regardless of which method I try to use (mounting the DMG created through Disk Utility, or accessing the MBP drive directly via target disk mode), SIU reads "No sources found".

[neilashdown]

Im not getting thunderbolt as an option to connect via on the mini, only firewire I am at mo doing it via booting up from USB and them Composer on the usb drive working as far

[neilashdown]

Im not getting thunderbolt as an option to connect via on the mini, only firewire I am at mo doing it via booting up from USB and them Composer on the usb drive working as far

[jshall]

The "customize" trick worked for me. Thanks for that tip!

[franton]

Confirmed. The SIU in 10.9 is buggy and should be "customised" to make it work. Sigh.

[swarby]

We had a similar problem when trying to create a NetBoot set from a mounted thunderbolt drive. SIU wouldn't accept it as a valid source. Renaming the mounted volume worked for us (from "Macintosh HD" to "NetBoot" in our case).

[benyoung]

Renamed the target volume to NetBoot (Suppose it doesn't matter what you call it) as swarby suggested and was able to get the utility to build the image without using "customise" option.

[mallenOR]

Renaming the volume to Netboot also worked for me. Thanks!

[jeremy_spolande]

Rename fixed here too, cheers, odd.

[thnguyen]

I'm sorry but what do you mean by

"Has to be in the format of /Volumes/Macintosh HD 1"??

[franton]

It has to be in that format with the spaces in the file path escaped by the character.

[perrycj]

So I renamed the volume to NetBoot but yet I can still only use the mavericks.app installer as the source. How do you manually point it to a certain volume? If I hit customize, it still only sees the mavericks.app as a source. I guess I'm missing something.

[benyoung]

From memory...after renaming the volume the option appeared for me when I selected the drop down list. By default though the option was "Install OS X Mavericks" after the change...so check to see if there are more options in the list.

[perrycj]

So I realized that I was launching the SIU from the CoreServices folder on a 10.9 machine instead of launching it from the Server 3.0 menu. Apparently it makes a difference and after doing that, I was able to choose any bootable volume I wanted for making a netboot image.

[dvasquez]

Re-naming the mounted disk worked for me. I am still testing image creation.

[alex_merenyi]

Posting just to say that it worked for me as well. This thread saved me from snapping a laptop over my knee. Thanks! :)

[ndudley]

Has anyone seen the error "Image Creation Failed - authorization was denied"? I keep getting that error when I try to create my NBI from the FireWire drive.

Also, the build on my Imaging server is 13A603 (from the App Store) and the build for the NBI I'm trying to create is 13A2093; could this be causing the error? I'm testing now by trying to capture the NBI from a computer with the same build 13A2093 and see if that works, but I was curious if anyone else has seen this problem?

[lpnicholas]

Did you get this to work? I'm in the same boat... I even tried making this netboot image on a 13A2093 build machine thinking I wouldn't get the same error, but I did. Anyone have success? Help! :)

[neilashdown]

I basically booted a new clean install from a USB stick created the disc image with composer 9.2 on the USB. I then used system image on the Casper server and configured the NetBoot as you would no ally do and I have had no problems at all it all works fine.

[lpnicholas]

neilashdown- di dyou do this from a new macbookproR running build 13A2093 of Mavericks? That's the issue I'm having... it's NOT the version of Mavericks in the Mac App Store.. :(

[neilashdown]

No I was mucking around with the upgraded version via app store and the NetBoot I created whilst still successful was giving me the keychain error upon install/boot, what I did was then got a MacMini and did a Net install/Recovery (hold down CMD R I think) and created a clean fresh copy on a reformatted disk via Disk Utilities on that Mini, it installed version 13A603 then booted that mini up from a USB stick and created the image through Composer from that and have had no problems. If you don't want anything on the MackBook I would do the same, at least you know you have a clean copy and not odd files from the old 10.8 and go from there.

[neilashdown]

Also in System Image Utility you have to open up your DMG file first and create it as a customised Image, I noticed that the SIU doesn't recognise the image so you have to manually navigate to it, but apart from that I have built several successful image with no errors.

[ndudley]

I found the only way that I will be able to do it would be to use SIU on a mac that is the same build as the 13A2093. It's not a great fix, but if you really need to get the images out there, this would do it. I haven't tried imaging anything with this, but I am assuming you would also need to image from that computer as well....

[lpnicholas]

hdudley: I figured that would be the only way, but I tried it several times--used SIU on the same build as the 13A2093 and it still failed with flying colors! :(

I have a call into Apple... I heard they have been known to issue NBI's. Can anyone else vouch for this?

[neilashdown]

Is it just the creation of the NetBoot image your struggling with? if so try and upload it to this link and I will give it a go if you like.

https://ftp.creativeleap.com/_tMUfafM2F6X11R

[lpnicholas]

Awesome, thank you! I'm uploading it now. You can contact me at nicholasl@moravian.edu
Thanks much!