Recovery Partition 10.9.4 How to...

Hello and welcome
This should be a good starting point
https://github.com/MagerValp/Create-Recovery-Partition-Installer
Cheers
Carlo

OMG, thank you so much !!!

So would it also be possible to roll out the recovery partition to machines with no recovery partitions on it?

@DDeleon][/url][/url

Hi. This is how I do my configurations with Recovery Partitions.

Mount Recovery Partition

sudo diskutil mount disk0s3

Open Disk Utility & create a new disk image from the RecoveryHD. Once it has been created, do a scan image for restore.

Open Casper Admin, upload the RecoveryHD image and give it a priority of 1.

Create a new configuration. Call it RecoveryHD and add the image to this configuration.

Create another new configuration (or edit an existing) and add a partition for the RecoveryHD. Call it RecoveryHD, give it a size of 1GB and a max percentage of 99%. Choose the RecoveryHD configuration.

Save.

You will also need this script to hide the RecoveryHD. Set the priority to after.

#!/bin/sh
/usr/sbin/diskutil unmount /dev/disk0s3
/usr/sbin/asr adjust -target /dev/disk0s3 -settype Apple_Boot

All machines that are imaged with that configuration will now have the recovery partition.

Hope that helps.

Check this link http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1595829 - pretty slick solution and works. I just extracted all the needed files and tools (dmtest) from the "Lion Recovery Update" as well as from the Mavericks Installer (BaseSystem.dmg and BaseSystem.chunklist), created a new Package via Composer and added a very little postinstall script to the .pkg which looks like this:

#!/bin/bash
# Create Recovery Partition (Mavericks 10.9.4)

# Build Recovery partition
/usr/bin/logger -s -t "Create Recovery Partition" "Building Recovery Partition. Please Wait..."
    /Library/Application Support/JAMF/bin/BaseOS/dmtest ensureRecoveryPartition / /Library/Application Support/JAMF/bin/BaseOS/BaseSystem.dmg 0 0 /Library/Application Support/JAMF/bin/BaseOS/BaseSystem.chunklist

/usr/bin/logger -s -t "Create Recovery Partition" "Rebuilding System Kext Caches"
    /usr/sbin/kextcache -f -u /

exit 0

The new .pkg is set to "Install on boot drive after imaging".

Cheers :)

Thank you for all your input. You guys saved my bacon !

Not for nothing, but y'know you can also make images that HAVE recovery partitions...
Allister
@sacrilicious

@Banks I do know that, but someone before me rolled out images without the recovery partition. I just wanted to know if you can push out just the partition without reimaging everything.

@DDeleon, yes you can. Have a look at https://jamfnation.jamfsoftware.com/discussion.html?id=5934. I used @rtrouton's article to create 10.7 and 10.8 recovery partitions and deploy them via Casper. I have not tried making a 10.9 recovery partition though. Maybe Rich will comment on whether he knows if his procedure will work for 10.9 or not.

These days, I'm using MagerValp's tool to create a partition installer:

https://github.com/MagerValp/Create-Recovery-Partition-Installer

+1 for MagerValp's Recovery utility. Works really well.

@ mpermann @ rtrouton Thank you for pointing me in the right direction !

The JAMF-suggested methodology to capture and image Recovery works, but it's convoluted. CRPI and AutoDMG work really, really well in a Casper workflow - been using them at multiple clients for many months.l

One more point, you can use recovery partition extension attribute to scope.

rtrouton - I tried using the tool. https://github.com/MagerValp/Create-Recovery-Partition-Installer

Everything worked great with the tool, however when I create a self-service for the .pkg to run, I am getting an error.

"Failed to download files from https://jamfserver/software/Packages/RecoveryPartitionInstaller-10.9.5.pkg/index.bom"

Thoughts?

I have been chatting with JAMF support and they want me to change the .pkg into a .dmg, but I would rather try and figure out the issue so I can use the tool.

@zmbarker][/url,

What version of Casper are you running? If you're on 8.73, I had a similar sounding issue where Casper would sometimes fail to properly download and install a bundle-style package.

@rtrouton,

Running Casper 9.32 on Windows server 2008 R2

@zmbarker,

Did you migrate your repo? If you're running 9.32 and have a migrated repo, all bundle-style packages should be automatically compressed into .zip files as part of the process of adding it to your Casper repo via Casper admin.

@rtrouton,

I don't know what you are asking by "Migrate your repo?" or how to determine if the "bundle-style" package was compressed into a .zip file?

If you are asking if I migrated everything from 8.x to 9.x when I updated the JSS, I would guess, yes. Jamf support actually did the upgrade via webex.

If you are asking what process I did for the "Recovery Partition".

I downloaded the "Create Recovery Partition Installer" from https://github.com/MagerValp/Create-Recovery-Partition-Installer. I then downloaded the latest 10.9.5 installer from the App Store under my personal apple ID. (I am still working with my bosses to get an organization apple id). I then launch the CRPI and drag/drop the 10.9.5.app file, which in turn spit out the.pkg file. I then opened Casper Admin and drag/drop the .pkg file into Casper Admin. Then saved Casper Admin. Then I went to the web-console for the JSS and created a policy that is configured with the .pkg file to install. I did not add any commands in the "Files and Processes" within the policy. The policy is very basic. No trigger/Run Ongoing/Self-service--Install pkg--Run Inventory Update after completed.

@zmbarker,

This is what I'm referring to:

https://jamfnation.jamfsoftware.com/article.html?id=327

@rtrouton

I have not, but I will do it migrate my stuff today.