NetBooting T2-enabled Macs?

dstranathan
Valued Contributor II

Can a T2-enabled Mac (such as a 2018 MacBook Pro) be NetBooted if Secure Boot is disabled via Recovery mode?

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11 REPLIES 11

afarnsworth
Contributor

"Mac computers that have the Apple T2 chip don't support starting up from network volumes."

  • https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202770

This would mean that no T2 chip Mac's can NetBoot period.

gregneagle
Valued Contributor

No.

sam_g
Contributor
Contributor

FWIW, as far as I understand, macs with the T2 chip can't netboot at all officially, but the mechanism is obviously built in to boot to apple diagnostics, internet recovery, or onsite AST2 diagnostics.

franton
Valued Contributor III

That'd be a no, which came as a shock to the Apple Genius last night.

dstranathan
Valued Contributor II

How do Apple Stores "re-image" their 2018 Macs at night?

rlincoln
New Contributor

I believe they use deepfreeze on the in-store Macs

nvandam
Contributor II

@dstranathan and @rlincoln , yeah, Deepfreeze. I'm a former Apple Retail employee. Try going into an Apple Store, change the wallpaper, create some files on the desktop, change the dock, etc. then just restart the computer. I loved watching people go around and change all the wallpapers to something funny, crude, etc., then follow behind them doing a Control-Command-Power Button to force a restart and revert back to our "image".

sam_g
Contributor
Contributor

@nvandam i doubt deepfreeze is used anymore, since deepfreeze doesn't support APFS in High Sierra.

blackholemac
Valued Contributor III

One of the first things I checked on our first T2 enabled Mac...for my own curiosity. I can confirm for a fact it doesn’t work even with the most liberal settings chosen in Startup Security Utility.

dstranathan
Valued Contributor II

Thanks everyone. I wasn't sure if Apple considered NetBoot "External Media" or not (I do but, Tim Cook doesn't return my calls).

I got my first T2 Mac today. In a pinch, I was able to disable Secure Boot, boot from a 10.13.6 (build 17G2112) USB drive, and then run Jamf Pro Imaging app from USB to get to the Mac enrolled/managed/on-boarded.

I have DEP but Im not fully leveraging it yet. Time for me to start rockin' DEP deployments. Only concern is a few pre-boot scripts that I need to figure out soon.

mikecardii
New Contributor

Is it possible to turn a netboot .nbi folder into a bootable flash drive for use in T2 macs?