Net Install Troubles

U

UndeadMeat

Registered
Hello everyone,

I am the new technology support person for a small school district running quite a few Macs. I have some general knowledge of the OS X environment, but I don't know the server side of the Mac world much. I am getting pretty frustrated trying to setup net installing on our 10.3.9 Server. Up until now the person who was in my position before me re-imaged every Mac using Carbon Copy Cloner and a firewire cable. One at a time... It took forever to do a single lab. I started looking around and discovered that OS X Server has the ability to serve out images over the network and it is possible to install a standard image on a bunch of computers at once. I tried to follow the directions from Apple and Mike Bombich as best I could but I must have missed something. Here's what I've done and what happens to me:

I have started AFS, NFS, and NetBoot services on the server (I have another server that will be handling DHCP). I used Disk Utility to create an image of a Mac that is properly configured. I moved that image to the Server, mounted it, and used Network Image Utility to create a NetInstall set. I see that it put it into /Library/Netboot/NetbootSPO and that it made that directory a share. I went into the Netboot service and set the new image as default. Now, when I boot an iMac I hold down the Option key and then select the network image that shows up on the screen. I get the grey screen with the spinning globe, then the spinning circle, then I get the blue screen like OS X is about to start but nothing else happens. It just stays as a blue screen with a spinning circle for ever. I am totally stumped.

I really appreciate any help you can give me, or places you can point me that might help.

Thanks a lot,
Nathan
 
Nathan,

Try using System Image Utility to create the image.* In fact, start small.* Take the generic Tiger DVD and make an image of that.* If you can push that and install, your in good shape to start.* Then progress to custom images.

Also, check to see if you are compressing the image.* This can help with larger images.* The drawback to compression is that older, slower machines will take longer for the decompression stages.* The bonus is that the network traffic will reduce and you can cram more data into your images.* If you have newer machines, this is the way to go. :)

It seems like your seeing the image OK, but maybe some of the bits in the image itself aren't quite all there, which is why I'm suggesting going straight with System Image Utility, just to eliminate extra steps.* SIU will checksum the image to death, which is a good thing, in this case.* If that doesn't work, try checking out the NFS mount itself from a client and seeing if you can manually access it, if the permissions are right on it and if you can use TFTP to transfer data from it.* Those are the primary technologies around the service.

Hope this helps!

Michael
 
I doubt this will help since I dont think your are using HTTP, but if you are serving the image to the client computers via HTTP I believe the image cannot be larger than 4GB in size.
 
Just discovered something that seems strange to me. I still can't install from the image I created, but I can use it to NetBoot. I'll try creating an image directly from the CD and see what happens. I just thought it was weird to be able to netboot but not netinstall from an image.

Nathan
 
It sounds to me that when you created your image in image utility, you must have chosen "New Boot" instead of "New Install"

Choose New Boot to create a netboot image and New Install to create a netinstall image.
 
taylorlightfoot said:
It sounds to me that when you created your image in image utility, you must have chosen "New Boot" instead of "New Install"

Choose New Boot to create a netboot image and New Install to create a netinstall image.
Click to expand...

Actually using the same image I created a NetInstall that didn't work, and then I created a NetBoot that did work. I have also gone back to the original image and made some changes and it still works at a NetBoot but not a NetInstall. I am going to try to find time to rebuld the image from the CDs.

Nathan
 
Intructions for Panther server
Before you configure your server, you need to turn off NFS Exporting for any existing share points, on your server open WGM and click the sharing button in the toolbar to check that every share point has turn off NFS Exporting. Select Netboot from your server, click settings and select the enable checkbox for the built-in ethernet port, select the images and client data checkboxes for the server's hard drive (where the images are), click save and restart the service. Used Network Image Utility (if you are using 10.3.9 this is correct name) located in /Applications/Server and click the new boot button in the toolbar, in the image name field type the name you want (for instance my_netinstall or my_netboot), set the image with a number below 4096 (1-4095) if the image will be hosted for just one server, select for 'available via' NFS. click contents pane choose the client computer's hard drive as the image source (could be connected in target disk mode to the server), in the installation options select "Enable automated installation" click create and complete the image creation. Disconnect client computer's. Restart your Netboot service and check in your Images pane if your image is there and select Enable and default (if is only 1 image). That's it. this should work.

PS. 10.3.9 only supports NetInstall images up to 6 GB using NFS, beyond that you might experience problems or hangs up in some computers. I recommend you to upgrade to tiger server (10.4) or use NetRestore from bombich , and do it as a AFP sharepoint instead of NFS. NetRestore preferences, select configurations a choose AFP (ther is some examples there) and be careful to redirect to the right place
afp://imaging@192.168.1.1/Images/Labs/Art Lab_asr.dmg
where imaging in this case is the name of the user that is accesing the image, 192.168.1.1 the address of the server (use your own ip address), ?Images/Labs?etcc.. is the path to the image you already created . so it coul be also /Library/Netboot/NetbootSPO .

Hope this help you to have a better idea. ;)
 
Sergio Soto said:
PS. 10.3.9 only supports NetInstall images up to 6 GB using NFS, beyond that you might experience problems or hangs up in some computers. I recommend you to upgrade to tiger server (10.4) or use NetRestore from bombich , and do it as a AFP sharepoint instead of NFS. NetRestore preferences, select configurations a choose AFP (ther is some examples there) and be careful to redirect to the right place
afp://imaging@192.168.1.1/Images/Labs/Art Lab_asr.dmg
where imaging in this case is the name of the user that is accesing the image, 192.168.1.1 the address of the server (use your own ip address), ?Images/Labs?etcc.. is the path to the image you already created . so it coul be also /Library/Netboot/NetbootSPO .

Hope this help you to have a better idea. ;)
Click to expand...

Eh, that's mostly true. I've seen images pushed around 18GB over NFS. Yeah, it may be true that you could encounter issues, which is why I suggested making a vanilla issue to try out the basic functionality of the server component and the ability for the server and the client to talk to each other.

If the DVD installer image doesn't work, then I can help you troubleshoot the NFS mount and so forth, if you like. :)

Michael
 
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