Why are Casper NetBoot Images so Fat?

[dstranathan]

And I don't mean "Phat" in a cool, hip way. ;0)

Smallest .nbi NetBoot set I have been able to make (with AutoCasperNBI) is ~5.5GB. My older DeployStudio NetBoot sets weighed-in at a svelte ~2GB. What gives?

Is Casper NetInstall Image Creator a supported app? If so, why isn't it part of the Casper Suite?

Help me make a lean-and-mean .nbi image, please!

Thank you

[psliequ]

The Netinstall creator that JAMF makes does just that but you lose some of the functionality present in a thicker nbi (no SMB libraries to mount SMB volumes during imaging for instance.)

If you can use AFP as a file server protocol the Netinstall Creator is great. Even if it's just a Mac Mini that sits disused until you need to perform mass imaging...

On my 'will never happen' wishlist; an Apple tool that creates fully gui-less command line netboot sets. Stripping all of that out would probably yield an nbi of less than 600MB.

[dstranathan]

Ahh, got it. NetBoot versus NetInstall.

Bummer about not having SMB libraries in NetInstall Creator.