problems netbooting new Lion Macbook Airs

[catfeetstop]

I can't Netboot the latest Macbook Airs that include Lion preinstalled. They boot to the Apple logo with the spinning globe but that globe just spins forever and ever. Older Macbook Airs can Netboot fine. I made a new Netboot set with the new Macbook Air and still have the same problem. The server is 10.6.8. We have Casper 8.22. Can 10.6.8 Netboot a Lion machine and can it image a Lion machine? I'm hoping that the problem is that I just need to update to the latest version of Casper. Any ideas?

Jamie Bell
Apple Technology Specialist
The Westminster Schools
Ph: 404-609-6345

[nessts]

I had similar problems make sure the airport device is turned off, that seemed to help me quite a bit.
--
Todd Ness
Technology Consultant/Non-Windows Services
Americas Regional Delivery Engineering
HP Enterprise Services

[catfeetstop]

Hmm, the Macbook Airs are brand new, out of the box. Can I disable the Airport if the very first thing I'm trying to do out of the box is Netboot the computers?

Jamie Bell
Apple Technology Specialist
The Westminster Schools
Ph: 404-609-6345

[jurgen_linde]

What OS is the netboot set? There should be no problem netbooting them from
a 10.6.8 server, but the actual netboot set will have to be 10.7.2 or the
custom 10.7 version that ships with the air.

Sent from my iPhone

[catfeetstop]

I just want to say thanks to everyone who helped me with this issue. I finally got the Macbook Airs to Netboot! Though it takes a while to Netboot, the computers are imaging great! Thanks so much!

Jamie Bell
Apple Technology Specialist
The Westminster Schools
Ph: 404-609-6345

[jhalvorson]

In our environment:

A MacBook Air takes approx 7 minutes to NetBoot.

A MacBook Pro, connected to the same network cable (1GB) and the same NetBoot image, takes 47 seconds to NetBoot.

I think the only reason for the longer time to NetBoot is the use of the USB Ethernet adapter with the MBA.

On one subnet hosting NetBoot services it's a 4 yr old Xserve running 10.6.8. Another subnet we have a Mac mini sever (mid 2011) running 10.7.2. The same results at both locations.

Anyone else experience the same time differences between MAcBooks?

Jason Halvorson

[Matt]

Same here. All unit take around 90 - 120 seconds to boot and a Macbook Air will usually Timeout or take around 10 minutes.
--
Matt Lee, CCA/ACA/ACMT/ACPT/ACDT
Senior IT Analyst / Desktop Architecture Team / Apple S.M.E / JAMF Casper Administrator
Fox Networks Group

[rob_potvin]

exactly what he said! you need to have a 10.7.2 build of your netboot set that came with the macbook air.

Then you can netboot

make sure you add your USB lan dongles as removable mac addresses in JSS before you start imaging.

Cheers

[catfeetstop]

Whoa! I did make a 10.7.2 Netboot set from the new Macbook Air, still no dice. I'm intrigued by this "removable MAC address in JSS" thing though, can you tell me more about that?

Jamie Bell
Apple Technology Specialist
The Westminster Schools
Ph: 404-609-6345

[rob_potvin]

You add your LAN adapters mac addresses to the list and when they are imaged, jss takes the wifi adapter address and not the LAN dongle address.

You can add these adapters in settings -> inventory options -> removable mac addresses.

Now you can use prestage imaging for deployment. I just finished imaging 300 new MacBook airs before the break I had no issues other then could only have 2 start the NetBoot process once booted could NetBoot 2 more and so forth.

Hope this helps. Let me know how you go.

Cheer

Rob

[catfeetstop]

Awesome, I'm adding all those addresses now. Thanks!

Jamie Bell
Apple Technology Specialist
The Westminster Schools
Ph: 404-609-6345

[clott]

We're having the same issue here. Snow Leopard Server with Lion on the Macbook Airs. How, exactly, does one go about creating a new netboot set?

[catfeetstop]

Download the ResourceKit http://jamfsoftware.com/support/resource-kit

Then check out the Netboot Automator Action. There's a document in there that'll walk you through the process. You'll probably also want to upgrade to JSS 8.43, there are fixes for Macbook AIrs.

- jamie