NetSUS appliance not enabling Netboot service

[pmcgurn]

Hi all,

I'm having an issue with getting the Netboot server operational. I created the .nbi, uploaded it to the server, and added the subnet via the web interface. When I click Enable Netboot, the page just refreshes and nothing happens. No error, and nothing to indicate what went wrong.

Any advice?

[pmcgurn]

Sigh, never mind.

I've found that this NetSUS appliance is built for failure in the two lone purposes it has.

1. Netboot doesn't "just work" out of the box. I've seen a number of posts on here indicating such
2. The SUS is built for immediate failure as well. I enabled this, and synched content from Apple. It immediately filled the entire 200GB drive this appliance ships with, to the point where the web app stopped allowing login. Design-wise, this should have been built as a separate partition/vDrive, so that it wouldn't kill the entire appliance from day 1.
3. Because this is "open source" per se, I'm assuming it's "no support" as well.

I think I'll pull the ripcord on this before I get sucked into a vortex of troubleshooting for the sake of not having a USB3 drive for imaging.

[drew_duggan]

NetBoot can definitely be a headache to manage, and with the changes that have come in OS X over the last few major releases, it's only going to become more difficult to re-image machines with a NetBoot workflow.

Target-mode imaging works pretty slick, especially if you have CasperShare replicated locally to it. Obviously, it's not feasible for all environments.

How often are you imaging client machines? Is it more or less for one-off troubleshooting? There are countless workflows out there, and we can probably help come up with a solution if you're looking to move to something else...

[bofh]

Well as I found out it makes a difference if you use the ovf file or installing it yourself.
I remember that I had to fix this and that, but after it worked great.

Try to join the macadmins slackchat (channel #netboot) and we can talk about it... :)