Speeding up Netboot Image

[swright_mm]

Hi,

I created a really small basic image with only a few apps on it for a Netboot, so that I can use that for Casper Imaging. I then used system image utility to make it a netboot image. The image size was only 9GB but after making it a netboot image, the size went all the way up to 19GB. Now the image boots up really slow. How can i Speed up the netboot image? The server the netboot is on, is already running on a 1GB port.

[chriscollins]

Technically the actual size of the netboot image doesn't affect the speed at which it loads because it only pulls over data as it needs it, so if you are launching Casper Admin while booted from the netboot image, its only going to ask for those pieces of the netboot image at that time. Is your netboot image settings in Server Admin set to diskless? Is that server's internal hard drive bogged down by anything? (not only does that server host the netboot image itself but it also hosts the temporary data for the client as it is netbooted diskless). I have had slow performance when I realized the server was running a Time Machine backup.

You also may want to try the autonbi or casper net install creator app you can both find on here which can also set all the data to be written to a ramdisk on the client instead of over the network to the server's hard drive.

[Chris_Hafner]

Oh boy. We could talk for some time on this one. However there are two really great development projects you should be aware of before putting any additional work into figuring out:

1) Casper AutoNBI
https://jamfnation.jamfsoftware.com/discussion.html?id=11356

2) Casper NetInstall https://jamfnation.jamfsoftware.com/viewProduct.html?id=13&view=info

Casper AutoNBI will help you automatically create .nbi's quickly in a highly customized yet replicable fashion. Casper NetInstall Creator will help you automatically create high speed, imaging NBIs that run in ramdisk so they are very fast but NOT customizable.

If you want to build .nbi's from scratch we'd always love to geek. However, I'm finding the need to create my .nbi's form scratch pretty much non-existant because I've started using both of these fantastic tools! That said, if you're interested in geeking out in this thread, type out your NetBoot server configuration, settings and basic network layout. Those tend to have a greater impact on overall performance than you .nbi does... usually.

[davidacland]

Hi,

Not sure what hardware your using for netboot but I would focus on disk speed on the server and the network connection. Mac minis are popular netboot servers but the hard drives really struggle under load. For the network I would look at bonding ports if thats an option. @bentoms is the Netboot master so he might be able to offer more pointers on tweaks to the nbi.

[bentoms]

Whoa, whoa @davidacland, far from the master.

I just wrote AutoCasperNBI in a fashion that seems to scale.

@swright.mm, Casper Netinstall Creator will build a faster booting NetInstall Image.. But if you want some to ARD into, connects to SMB shares &/or you only image one or two then AutoCasperNBI might work.

Both are designed to Mac images in a speedy way to cut down on the faff. So why not try them?