Pre-stage review and recap

[JKling]

I am new to Casper. I have been searching through the articles and found a few that dance around my issues, but most end with everyone throwing their hands up and saying "I quit using Pre-stage imaging". If that is the best solution then there is not a good discussion of an option to put out say 200 MacBooks.

So here is where I am and would like a discussion of the best procedure.

I am loading 200 MacBook Airs for the teaching and admin staff at our school. It is Mt Lion load along with several software packages (iLife, iWork, Office, print drivers, and so on).

I setup the prestage and loaded all of them. A couple of minor issues, but I got through it. I later found that the image needed tweeked. I went to reimage and it is PAINFUL...

I get variety of issues on machine connected at the same time. I will get 1 or 2 that load with no problem. I always have a few that seem like they cannot dismount the hard drive to erase is. These blow through the steps of the load and freeze. If I reboot sometimes they work the next time, sometimes they take 4 or 5 boots to work.
I get a few that will seem to load fine, but when I log in after they are complete, there are no profiles loaded or just the MDM profile loads. If nothing loads I run the QuickAdd and it seems ok.

I am relatively new to enterprise Mac configuration and use, so I am working my way through it, but would really like to see if this is a Casper issue, or if I am doing something wrong.

Thanks

[gachowski]

Jeff,

We use the prestage and love it. We have about 1,000 machines that have been imaged and many that have been re-imaged. It sounds like there are a few issues going.

1st I recommend reaching out to jamf support they are the gold standard when it comes to helping out and tracking issue down. I am 99% sure they are going to make sure your netboot image has the following file changes. I was scared off because it's looks like a big change, but it's just swapping out one file, and you can do that on your current netboot image.

http://www.macos.utah.edu/documentation/administration/setup_netboot_service_on_mac_os_x_10.6.x_clie...

1. I think there might be a bug about the profiles, I have read some posts about issues, but they depend on what versions of the JSS you are running.

Good luck!!

C

[JKling]

Thanks for the feedback Gachowski...

I will give JAMF a call. I was just in the middle of the deployment and was hoping someone had a "ahh that is easy, just check this box" sort of answer.

I am using the boot image that our Kickstart tech gave me. I may have to figue out how to build my on when I have a chance.

[gachowski]

You don't have to build another one, you can just swap out the file. : )

C

[Chris_Hafner]

Ditto. I love Pre-Stage imaging... when it's appropriate (for us, beginning of the school year in a BYOD program). Silly question though: Did the failed units actually enroll in the JSS. if they did they will need to be deleted before you can Pre-Stage them again.