Reluctant G3 iMac going to OS 10.3

Cabinnyc

Registered
Recently went through an OS 10.3 upgrade. It came with an iPod with an image. The image/upgrade was purchased for G3 iBooks 700mhz.
I was told by the tech that did the server/iBook upgrade that the image would work with our G3 iMacs. Now as we're trying to push the image onto the iMacs, we have some slot loading (400mhz?) iMacs that are giving us "error -1000" messages. And we have to abandon the disk image restore. I've rebuilt the hard drive with clean reinstalls of OS 9.2. This is only happening with some machines. Other identical iMacs have accepted the image without trouble.
Also, some of the machines need the firmware upgrade, which I have also done (upgrade 4.1.9)
Any suggestions?
Many thanks!
-Curtis
Crossroads School
 
I'm slightly lost here, sorry! :)

Can you explain a bit more? Remember, images for portables will include installs specific for portables, like performance settings, battery life settings, etc.

I've upgraded a fleet of iMac G3's (500MHz) using NetInstall, part of the NetBoot service in Mac OS X server. If you have a whole bunch of machines, you can deploy them in a few easy steps:

1. Take one of your iMacs and set it up exactly how you'd like all your machines to be, but leave out any machine specific settings, like if you bind your machines to Active Directory, or such.

2. Boot your iMac into Target Disk Mode and on a machine that has the Mac OS X Server tools installed, use Network Image Utility to create an image of the machine.

3. Still using NIU, export the image to your NetBoot server.

4. Enable the image to deploy.

5. Boot your clients holding down the N key,k which will begin the NetBoot install process for you.

That's the gist of it. :)

Educational pricing on the server software is pretty attractive. Also, remember, the licensing for Server is only on filesharing, so a 10 user license should NetBoot all of your clients, as I understand it.
 
Thanks for the advice!
(Running the school network without a license....always a dangerous thing.)
I'm assuming that you connect the target disk mode machine to the servertools machine with a firewire..

Netboot server is new to me. I assume it is among the server functions.

Once the image been prepped to deploy, how many machines can you start up with the Netboot process at any one time.

These questions may be elementary, but there's no training for teachers who pick this responsibility up in their schools...so I also may not be presenting the situation clearly enough. Thanks.
 
Sure, not a problem. I help when I can! :)

Hmmm....how many iMacs can you boot at once...

Well, that really depends on many things. If your using a really high horsepower machine to run your NetBoot Server, you could easily get over 50 of them per server. Its all a matter of your hardware and networking.

NetBoot itself is very straight forward to set up. Yes, you'll connect your ideal image machine to your admin console with a FireWire cable. You'll take a bit of a hit on time moving your image to your NetBoot server, which you'll want to use the tools to do (don't just drag and drop it on the server).

The proper place to transfer your NetBoot images to is Library/Netboot/NetBootSP0 on your server. You may also see a NetBootClients0 folder. That's used to store the client data for your netbooted clients.
 
Okay...now regarding the NetBoot function: this isn't the setup where the machines run like "thin clients" and always boot off of the server, right?
You're just using NetBoot to install the OS with the server as the source, yes?

We have an "older" G4 xServer. Two drive bays (one "degraded") so we really have only one drive right now (tech support is supposed to be coming this week). So our server is not really "robust" right now....

I assume this is still quicker than going around individually and installing the image from the ipod that came with the iBook upgrade package.

Thanks so much for the help. It's really hard to find.

-Curtis
 
No problem :)

An Xserve G4 would be on the robust side. What's your issue with the degraded mirror?

NetBoot has two primary functions. Yes, you can set it up to be a thin client of sorts, where your clients actually rely on the server to boot. You can also set up NetBoot to be an NetInstall server, where the image is installed on the client. The second option is what you want. :)
 
I thought that the approximately 3 year old xServe might not be up to the task of performing the NetInstalls. I'd be working a room at a time...roughly 4 workstations in each room. I didn't think of our server as really solid, especially with one of its drive bays not working.
Based on your advice, I took one of the iMacs off the network this afternoon and did a clean reinstall of OS 10.3 and all the other applications that we will need so that I'll have a "model machine" to use for the image.
I'm at another school tomorrow, but hopefully on Thursday I can actually attempt creating the image. I'm sure I'll have more questions then.
Thanks again!
-Curtis
 
Sure, let me know what you find.

I tend to find a lot of makeshift solutions in the educational market. An Xserve is better than a Mac Mini or eMac :)
 
Okay, so far, so good...I created an Install Image. I've exported it to the NetBootSPO file. The image is 4.16gb, so it's taking a while...
What's the next step? How do I "enable the image to deploy"?
After that, can I actually boot up a workstation with the "n" key down and it will begin a netinstall to that client?
Thanks-this could be magic,
-Curtis
 
Ok, your doing well it sounds! :)

To enable an image, open up Server Admin and click on NetBoot. Click on the Clients tab at the bottom and enable NetBoot on at least one of your network ports. Then click on the Images tab on the top and enable the image you have created. For simplicity, make it the default image. You can always disable the image, or service entirely, later. Save your settings and away you go!

All you should have to do is go to your client machines, boot and hold down the N key and your clients will search for your Netboot server. From there's its pretty simple. :)
 
"one of your network ports"......hmmm.
I'm still waiting on the image to finish copying to the server, so I can't actually look at this window yet. But wondering what a "network port" is going to look like? Bumping into ignorance here...
-Curtis
 
Another question. It's been "saving" for nearly an hour now. Does that sound right to you? Will it also take this much time to "deploy" it to a workstation? Am I better off to put an image on a firewire drive and load it individually on each workstation? If that is faster-do I load a "boot image" or an "install image"onto the firewire drive? And can I simply drag/drop, or do I have to "export" the image to the firewire drive?
Lots of questions, sorry...
-Curtis
 
It will take you longer to upload the image than to deploy it. You'll be using block level copying to deploy with NetBoot and can also boot numerous machines at once.

Enabling a port is simple. Just go into Server Admin -> NetBoot -> Settings Tab -> General. Just check box the network interfaces you want to share your image on. :)
 
Among the "Options" selections, it didn't offer "block level copying". I hope this won't make a huge difference in deployment time.
I will not be in the school until (perhaps) late afternoon. So I won't know how it goes until late Friday or early Monday morning. Perhaps I'll have questions then.
You're guidance has been so very helpful!! Many, many thanks!
 
No problem :)

For future reference, in the Network Image Utility, if you click on Installation Options, "Create Block Copy Install Image" is on by default, so you should be ok! :)
 
I enable the image on NIU. I went to a imac and boot up with the N key.....nothing happened. It show an icon with a question mark then it goes to the login screen.
What should I do..
Many thanks!
 
hmmm, means that it can't find your netboot server. Are the server and client on the same subnet? Have you also started the NetBoot service in Server Admin? :)
 
Hello , I'm Jonathan and Curtis and I are working together on this issue.
well the NetBoot service is running and the image is enable. DNS is not running (should it matters..??)
I don't quite know if the clients are on the same subnet...??
Thanks for your help
 
There are four basic services needed for NetBoot.

AFP
NFS
Web
DHCP

You only really need DHCP and NFS to push out images. DHCP doesn't have to be on the OS X Server, but DHCP service needs to be on the network.

Next thing I'd try doing, is from a client machine, makes sure that your NetBoot share is visible to the client. Open up Terminal.app (MacHD -> Applications -> Utilities) and type in:

showmount -e NetBoot_Server_IP_Here

obviously, replace "NetBoot_Server_IP_Here" with your server's IP address. Also, try using the DNS name as well. If your up and running properly, atleast thus far, you should receive a message like:

/Library/NetBoot/NetBootSP0 Everyone
 
Okay, we used this command -replacing with our server address - but received the following message:

RPC: Port mapper failure: Can't do Exports rpc

While trying to enable NFS we got this error message:

"Try to refresh the view (10.5.139.6/NFS). Report the problem to the administrator if it persists. (“servermgr_nfs” server-side plugin may have crashed)"

-Curtis
 
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