upgrade the OS via Casper?

Janowski
New Contributor II

So I know this is a bit of a bold question - but is there a supported way to upgrade client machines from 10.5.8 to 10.6 via the Casper Suite?

I feel like you should be able to make a copy of the SL OS DVD and then "run" that on machines... but I know it's not that simple.

Does anyone already leverage the casper suite to do mass OS upgrades? Just trying not have to re-image them all.
Thanks for any insights you might have!

ben janowski
Senior Macintosh Support Technician
Kohl's Mac Support Team
262.703.1396 | benjamin.janowski at kohls.com

2 REPLIES 2

Not applicable

Ben,

I looked at something like this two years ago when we were looking to do a mass upgrade. We tested it and everything went well, but nothing ever came of it since the project got cancelled. The process involved one script that would backup the All the Users home folders to a share on the network, or fire wire drive, then Casper would erase the drive, image the computer, then a second script would run after the imaging, before the reboot and copy the users data back down. The scripts were from Mike Bombich’s site, a line or two had to be changed. I have not tested it against Leopard, or Snow Leopard so they might need to be updated, and I would suggest more through testing. Let me know if you want more details, or the scripts I used.

Sean
--
Sean Gallagher
Sr. Platform Engineer
The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
100 Penn Square East 7th Flr.
Phila, PA. 19107
267-426-2607

mfennelly
New Contributor III

We did it in Sept. It went very well.

I made a 10.6 netinstall with the System Image Utility and set it to run
automatically. This was *not* the default Netboot image.

I used the Netboot Accross Subsets package from Bombich.com to make a
package to set the Netboot image to our 10.6 installer and created a
self-service policy to run the package and reboot the laptop.

It went really well. The teachers liked that they could pick the time for
the upgrade and keep physical custody of their laptop while it happened.

Maura

Maura Fennelly
Technology Department
Archbishop Mitty High School
mfennelly at mitty.com
408.324.4243