[netrestore] **How to image OS X with NetRestore**

[Rozzer]

Hello All,

 

I have put together a walk through on how to image OS X with Net Restore. I have posted the walk through on my website to. To visit the site you can go directly to the article by going to: http://www.howtomac.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=23&Itemid=27

 

**Fixed Download page**

 

Here is the walk through:

 

Imaging OS X

 

First of all which needs to be done is you need to get your image all ready. This can be by making sure the OS is upto date and clearing all rubbish and making sure all*relevant*software is installed.

 

Once this is done you need to take the image off. This can be done by doing many methods. The most easy way i find is *to use a Mac OS X DVD. You can use Disk utility from there. You can also you a USB/FIrewire bootable drive.

 

For this example I will be using the OS X DVD.

 

In case you do not know how to boot onto an OS X DVD you simply put the DVD in the drive. You then need to restart your Apple mac. Just before you hear the chime go hold down the C key on your keyboard.*I advice you hold it down until you see the wheel spinning around.*

 

Once you are into the OS X installation disk first press next on the first box that comes up. Then you need to go to the utility menu at the top and select Disk utility. Once in the disk utility you then need select the disk you wish to make a image of and select image at the top of Disk Utility. Once you done that you will then be asked where to store the image. I suggest you do this by putting the image on a external drive or another drive in the apple mac. I also suggest you use compression as images can get quite big.

 

Once the image has finished you then can go onto your admin computer or server.

 

In this example of using NetRestore I will be doing this from OS X 10.4 Server to make things easier.

 

Once you have plugged the firewire/USB drive into your OS X server you then will need to download the Netrestore utility. This can be found on http://www.howtomac.co.uk/index.php?option=com_docman&task=cat_view&gid=24&Itemid=38 under downloads. 
Once downloaded you then need to run a program called NetRestore helper. In this application you can make the image file like we did with the OS X DVD but its complicated to use when you want to make a image of the drive you are using. When in NetRestore helper you need to click on the Create NetInstall Set tab at the top of NetRestore Helper.

 

In this part you need to name your image. For this example I will call my name "Macintosh OS_X_10_4_01022008" I always find it helps to date a image so i don't get confused. After that you then need to set the image ID this can be anything from 1 - 4095 i always go up in twos. For this example i will name this one "12". Also you can file a bit of a description in so for this example I will put in "OS X 10.4.11 with iLife"

Once you have filled in all these boxes you can add a few extra options by clicking the advance setting button. On this you can enable Remote Desktop so you can monitor how your image is going.

 

Once you have finished with all the settings you then need to click the pad lock and put in a Administrators password. When you have done that you can then click "Save NetInstall-Restore set" . You will then be asked where to save the net install. If you are using NetInstall of the Mac Server you will need to put it into /Macintosh HD/Libary/NetBoot/NetBootPS0/.

 

Near the end of the NetInstall set being made you will be asked if you wish to configure net restore say yes to this. You will then have the NetRestore tool open up. Within this you can set the options for the NetInstall for automated imaging. To do this you will need to go to Netrestore menu and then click preferences. If you wish to set a specificate image to install click under default configuration and select "Specify dynamic item.." Another box will appear and in this box you will need to name the image which you made. In this case I would put in "OS_X_10_4_01022008.dmg" Then click OK. If you wish to have full automation just click the Enable Full Automation Box. You also hav ea few other options to the right you can chose this if you like i tend to solect restart when finish and set target as boot disk.

 

When done just click save and you can then quite the NetRestore Utility. You will also need to unmount the NetRestore DMG image.

 

Now that the net install is done you then need to move the image file you made earlier to a folder in NetBootPS0 But first you need to copy some folders to the NetBootPS0 folder. If you go to the folder where you find Netrestore you will find several other folders within the netrestore folder. All you need to do is copy the "Resources" Folder to the NetBootPS0 folder located again in /Macintosh HD/Libary/NetBoot/NetBootPS0. Now you have the resource folder in plage you can now move the image you made ealier to the folder "/Resources/Disk Images/"

 

Now you have done all the above you now need to enable the image on server admin. To do this just go into the server admin software on the server and select the "NetBoot" service. You then need to go to the bottom tab and select settings and after that then select images. In this menu you will see the image which we named ealier. You will have the option to enable and make it default. if you make the image default any client machine which presses N on startup will start installing this image. If not selected within the Startup pane in System Preferences you can just select a image you want to install. When completed just click apply when your done.

 

Thats imaging with netrestore in a nut shell. Have fun

Edited February 1, 2008 by Rozzer

[Rozzer]

By the way any chance this could be stickied up?

 

I will also put together a Dualboot imaging as well.

 

Ross

[mactech03]

Good write up, its exactly what ive been looking for. As far as my opinion goes it s one of the only decent writeups on the subject ive seen, all of the others tend to be too vauge. I think it would help if you provided either screenshots along the way or maybe even a video. Im pretty new to imaging macs across the network and having video or screenshots would help tremendously. Anyways good write up and you work is appreciated.:-)

[Rozzer]

Good write up, its exactly what ive been looking for. As far as my opinion goes it s one of the only decent writeups on the subject ive seen, all of the others tend to be too vauge. I think it would help if you provided either screenshots along the way or maybe even a video. Im pretty new to imaging macs across the network and having video or screenshots would help tremendously. Anyways good write up and you work is appreciated.:-)

 

Thanks for your kind words. I was thinking screen shots were required. Maybe i will put together a leopard imaging setup with pictures

 

Ross

[mac_shinobi]

Thanks for your kind words. I was thinking screen shots were required. Maybe i will put together a leopard imaging setup with pictures

 

Ross

 

2nd that and thanks again !

 

Would be handy to have the imaging setup with pics for leopard

 

ta

[mactech03]

I also think it would be helpful if there was a "how to" on asr multicasting. The guides that I have come across on asr multicasting are not very helpful. If you need help with screen shots or videos let me know.

[Rozzer]

I am working on multi cast at the mo. Had a few issues where i work with its so i want to make sure its 100% right.

[HodgeHi]

Just to let folks know (if they don't already) that bombich has updated Net-Restore to 3.4.5.

 

The biggest change is that there is now an option to select dual deployment in the GUI when configuring the NetRestore part of the operation.

 

This is how it works.

 

You tick a box and then choose the XP image to be deployed after the OS X image. There is also a slider to choose the size of the partitions on the drive. It is much easier to work with like this than the scripts. I never got the scripts to work so it must be straight forward if i can do it.

 

Had a few issues with the XP image deploying though.

 

Also i found that if you use Boot camp to create an equal partitioned drive and then set the slider in Net-Restore to be equal to the sizes are slightly different and so the XP image cannot deploy as the size is too small.

 

Well thats what it seemed like anyway.

[FN-GM]

Will this let you restore a ghost image to the windows partition of the harddrive created by bootcamp?

 

Thanks

[Bayne]

First off, thanks to Ross2k5 for an excellent post regarding NetRestore. I followed the instructions and now have two working solutions...one via network install and one using firewire from a master laptop to deploy images to other laptops.

 

My conundrum...I switched to the computer to computer deployment due to my entire network slowing down to a crawl when trying to use NetBoot/NetRestore network install. Anyone have any similar experiences/solutions? I'm somewhat new to the arena of network management so I could be missing some fundamental and easy solution.

[HodgeHi]

What version of net-restore are you using. If the later version then it is quicker than the previous versions.

 

It is very bandwidth hungry. Apparently multicasting is supposed to be faster and better but not got that far yet. How many are you doing?

[Bayne]

I'm using version 3.4.6

 

Not using multicasting.

 

And I was only restoring one laptop. It was very slow and as I mentioned it slowed down my entire network to a crawl. There's a small chance it was a fluke and there was another issue with the network, but as soon as I noticed global lag when surfing I disconnected the laptop and everything went back to normal.

[MacGeek]

I much prefer Deploy Studio. Much much easier and can be setup for zero touch rebuilds.

[Rozzer]

This thread is very old you can't even get hold of net restore now a days.

 

I strongly recommend using deploy studio its great!!