Self-Service upgrade to 10.10.3 with createosxinstallpkg not booting into OS X installer

[etippett]

I'm seeing inconsistent results trying to get a Self Service policy to install OS X 10.10.3 with a package created using createosxinstallpkg. The policy reboots the computer (set to reboot immediately whether user is logged in or not) but some systems are not booting into the OS X installer but are instead booting the normal system and the upgrade never occurs.

I've tried setting the Startup Disk in the Restart Options to Current Startup Disk, Current Startup Disk (No Bless), and OS X Installer. None of these has resolved the issue. I also tried not having Casper do the reboot and instead issuing 'shutdown -r +1' via the Files and Processes tab.

We ran essentially the same process last year with Mavericks and had no issues. Our end users are not admins, so the JAMF method of running the installer.app won't work.

Computers being upgraded are 10.9.5 with FileVault2 enabled. The policy also disables sleep (script before), changes the management account password, runs a script to also change the management account keychain password (after), and changes the computer name (another script, set to after).

Any ideas? Does anyone know how to manually issue a bless command to boot to the OS X Installer?

Thanks,
Eric

[rqomsiya]

@rtrouton Thanks for the quick response! Much appreciated. i'll give it a shot.

[jhalvorson]

@rqomsiya If you do implement Self Service OS Install script because you don't plan to include any first boot packages, be aware that the script will toggle a setting for FileVault. The result is the Mac will prompt once to proceed on with FileVault unlock, boot the OS, and then prompt again for a user to login.

There are a couple options: A) Remove the part of the Self Service OS Install script that sets the "DisableFDEAutoLogin".
or
B) If you leave the Self Service OS Install script as it is and you don't want that behavior, you'll want to follow up with a policy or a first boot package that changes that setting back to Apple's default. That later is what your trying to avoid.

[rqomsiya]

Does this hold true even if I have FileVault turned on? All my machines in 10.10.5 are FV2 encrypted.

[jhalvorson]

@rqomsiya His script does not turn file vault on or off, it changes a behavior in the boot up processes that is necessary for the "first boot packages process to work."

I've used the following to avoid that behavior change at a time when I was not including any first boot packages.

#!/bin/bash

#REF: https://jamfnation.jamfsoftware.com/discussion.html?id=14728
#REF:  https://github.com/rtrouton/rtrouton_scripts/blob/master/rtrouton_scripts/Casper_Scripts/self_service_yosemite_os_install/self_service_yosemite_os_install.sh


available_free_space=$(df -g / | tail -1 | awk '{print $4}')
needed_free_space="$4"
os_name="$5"
insufficient_free_space_for_install_dialog="Your boot drive must have $needed_free_space gigabytes of free space available in order to install $os_name using Self Service. It has $available_free_space gigabytes available. If you need assistance with freeing up space, please contact the help desk."
adequate_free_space_for_install_dialog="$os_name may take up to 30 minutes to download and prepare for installation. Please be patient. Once the operating system has downloaded, this Mac will automatically restart to begin the installation process."

if [[ "$available_free_space" -lt "$needed_free_space" ]]; then
   jamf displayMessage -message "$insufficient_free_space_for_install_dialog"
fi

if [[ "$available_free_space" -ge "$needed_free_space" ]]; then
   echo "$available_free_space gigabytes found as free space on boot drive. Installing OS."

   jamf displayMessage -message "$adequate_free_space_for_install_dialog"
   jamf policy -trigger cache-elcapitan-installer
   jamf policy -trigger run-elcapitan-install
   shutdown -r now

fi

exit 0

[rqomsiya]

Hi all,

So i just attempted to run this. It runs through the script, then restarts into the FV2 login window. If i enter my credentials it just loads back to the desktop with self-service launched. Any ideas as to whats going on? Thanks!

When looking at the logs see this for the "Install El Capitan Installer" Policy:
Executing Policy Install El Capitan Installer...
Installing InstallOSX_10.11.3_15D21.pkg.zip...
Installation failed. The installer reported: installer: Package name is OS X
installer: Installing at base path /
installer: The install failed (The Installer encountered an error that caused the installation to fail. Contact the software manufacturer for assistance.)

-Ronnie

[mpermann]

@rqomsiya I've seen the same error message when there wasn't enough disk space. When using a customized .pkg file made with createOSXinstallPkg I've found I need at least 22 GB of free space on the disk for the installation to complete properly from Self Service. I do not cache the package before hand so I am not sure if that would lessen the storage requirements or not.

[rqomsiya]

I was able to go through the entire upgrade with only one small issue: The after the policy caches the installer and reboots, i'm still prompted to authenticate on the FV2 screen. Any ideas whats going on?

[rtrouton]

@rqomsiya,

That's expected behavior when using a createOSXInstallPkg-built OS X installer. For more details on this behavior, please see the link below:

https://derflounder.wordpress.com/2013/11/30/upgrading-a-filevault-2-encrypted-mac-to-10-9-differenc...

[jriv]

Nevermind! The logs are saying that the package cannot be found. I cached the package again and am now able to install.

Thanks,
John