NetBoot/SUS Appliance now available

Can the NetBoot server host diskless NetBoot images? I have three SIU-created NetBoot utility disks that I'd love to be able to move over to this solution, but they need to be able to run as diskless.

You guys... You guys are just too good to us.

Awesome! That is just so awesome! Thanks guys that rocks!

Cheers

Do you need to be a current JAMF customer to use this or is it free for anyone to use? I'm asking because I'm not seeing anywhere you need to put in a registration code and the download link works without needing to sign into anything.

i'd imagine it's all free since, it's based on open source stuff. there's some licensing text in some of the scripts on disk, but i didn't see anything specific beyond that.

Hi Rich -

The appliance is for anyone to use. We have documentation around how to integrate with Casper, but others are welcome to use it as well.

Regarding your previous question, your existing nbi's should work just fine.

Thanks!

I am setting it up right now! Awesome! You guys rock!

Thanks, Jake. This is a great gift to the Mac community, especially for those folks who are being told "virtualize, virtualize!" by their IT management.

I'd say shut up and take my money, but not applicable here. Great work guys reading the documentation now.

Hi Rich,

To answer your question about diskless NetBoot:

We made the assumption that we would always want to boot in diskless mode. As the client begins to NetBoot it will mount scratch space on the appliance, as the client reboots or shutdowns from NetBoot the scratch files are deleted from the appliance. Any existing NBI should work, just copy the folder up and enable.

Thanks, Eric. That's just what I was hoping for, glad to hear I don't even have to fiddle with config files to enable diskless NetBoot.

I have a question, by branches (is what it calls it in the documentation) does that mean I can also cascade multiple SUS appliances? Right now I have one parent and 5 children SUS. I update the parent, the children are cascaded to.

Is that possible?

Thanks,
Tom

These would be separate branches completely. There's no "cascade" functionality. Here's the Reposado Git: https://github.com/wdas/reposado
Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/reposado

These would be separate branches completely. There's no "cascade" functionality. Here's the Reposado Git: https://github.com/wdas/reposado Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/reposado

I figured as much. I really love my enable it once and forget about it set up. Though, if it uses standard catalog files for the SUS service you probably still could set up cascading servers with this appliance. I won't have time to test it out so I cannot be sure it will work.

Awesome. Setup was a breeze and it's working out of the box. I use Reposado already but am always looking for an excuse to move NetBoot off OS X Server.

Are there plans to incorporate the more sophisticated logic available on OS X Server, like .nbi's for multiple architectures, MAC address filtering, etc.?

you should be able to replicate at your remote sites. check this thread for some clues: http://groups.google.com/group/reposado/browse_thread/thread/94ed01287b5bab21/f6707057d9812674

join the list, and the group will help you sort it out.

Has anyone tried to Netboot a DeployStudio Runtime? A 10.7.3 NetInstall worked perfectly, but a 10.7.2-based Runtime I pulled off my NetBoot server kernel panics on a 2010 Mac Mini, in the "imageboot_mount_image" function in the kernel.

Is there a way to run multicast ASR from this appliance?

Awesome! Thanks Jamf & Greg!

How is AFP implemented? Is it netatalk?

Netatalk is what was used for AFP. Once you have the appliance installed you can view a list of the components used on the About page.

A picture of the open-source acknowledgements page is here:

http://twitpic.com/8glygw

Does the SUS component have any proxy support?

Thanks JAMF.

"Does the SUS component have any proxy support?"

Assuming you mean can the SUS use a web-proxy to retrieve updates from Apple: Reposado, which is the underlying software for the SUS component does have web-proxy support:

https://raw.github.com/wdas/reposado/master/docs/reposado_preferences.txt

You'd add something like:

<key>AdditionalCurlOptions</key> <array> <string>proxy = "web-proxy.yourcompany.com:8080"</string> </array>

to the Reposado preferences.plist. There's no GUI for that, though.