Remote Install Of Mavericks

[IKWeb]

Hi All

 

I want to know if anyone has managed to install 10.9 to your macs remotely, say via Apple Remote Desktop?

 

I have 200 IMacs that I want to upgrade, but I don't want to visit all the iMacs.

 

We have a copy of Apple Remote Desktop, But I can't find a way to get it to install the update. Any help would be great.

 

TIA

[iSteve]

Set up one machine with 10.9, image it, and deploy the image using net install / deploy studio?

[AntonioRocco]

Hi

 

It's not recommended using ARD to do this on one mac let alone the number you have. Remember this is a full OS upgrade and not an update.

 

However you could copy the Mavericks installer using the Copy feature in ARD to all 200 iMacs over your network. This has its drawbacks as apart from the obvious impact on your network you'd still have to 'touch' all 200 iMacs in some way to start the upgrade. Either by logging in locally on each one or by sending a series of unix commands wrapped in a script to set the ball rolling.

 

A better way would be to use a deployment tool such as NetInstall, DeployStudio, Munki etc as the other poster has alluded to.

 

If you have OS X Server on your network use it. If you don't then really consider getting it.

 

HTH?

 

Antonio Rocco (Apple Consultants Network)

[IKWeb]

Hi Guys

 

Thanks for the reply, we do have deploy studio, I was kinda holding out incase I could just apple to update over the top of the current machines without having to update the whole machine.

 

Can I assume the OSX server has to be a lvl before it will handle clients running 10.9 ?

 

Thanks tho.

Edited December 4, 2013 by IKWeb

[seawolf]

Here's an article for doing just this sort of upgrade to Lion and should work in principle for 10.9

 

http://derflounder.wordpress.com/2011/09/08/upgrading-to-lion-with-deploystudio/

 

With 200 clients you are at the point where an investment in Casper Suite or similar may be worth serious consideration. DeployStudio is great (and free), but it can only do so much before you start to see its limitations.

[IKWeb]

Here's an article for doing just this sort of upgrade to Lion and should work in principle for 10.9

 

Upgrading to Lion with DeployStudio | Der Flounder

 

With 200 clients you are at the point where an investment in Casper Suite or similar may be worth serious consideration. DeployStudio is great (and free), but it can only do so much before you start to see its limitations.

 

Super, I will try this now, and update on how I go incase its of any use to anyone else.

[AntonioRocco]

Hi

 

Seawolf gives good solid advice (as usual) and Casper is certainly something you should consider along with the other suggestions made.

 

There's no requirement for the OS X Server version to be the same as the client OS. A good 'general rule of thumb' for OS X is client OS to be either one lower, the same or one newer than the server version you have. In an ideal world you should try and keep everything consistent.

 

One more thing you may want to consider is whether or not there's a real 'need' to upgrade at all? What is 10.9 going to give you that you don't already have? The old adage of "if it's not broke, don't fix it" may still apply for your situation. It's also good policy to hold off upgrading until the OS becomes more stable as later system updates tend to be more reliable.

 

Antonio Rocco (Apple Consultants Network)

Edited December 4, 2013 by AntonioRocco

[Jwzg]

I will "x2" this. Our LDAP server started crashing randomly for some reason last month, and rather than roll back to an older version, I gambled and upgraded to OS 10.9 along with Server 3.0. In doing so, I broke directory access for all 415 users as well as Profile Manager which we use for over 300 devices. Of course, this was on a weekend and I immediately rolled back to OS 10.8.4. Hopefully you catch his drift. Better the devil you know....

 

Hi

 

Seawolf gives good solid advice (as usual) and Casper is certainly something you should consider along with the other suggestions made.

 

There's no requirement for the OS X Server version to be the same as the client OS. A good 'general rule of thumb' for OS X is client OS to be either one lower, the same or one newer than the server version you have. In an ideal world you should try and keep everything consistent.

 

One more thing you may want to consider is whether or not there's a real 'need' to upgrade at all? What is 10.9 going to give you that you don't already have? The old adage of "if it's not broke, don't fix it" may still apply for your situation. It's also good policy to hold off upgrading until the OS becomes more stable as later system updates tend to be more reliable.

 

Antonio Rocco (Apple Consultants Network)

[seawolf]

@IKWeb You've gotten some good advice here from all. I agree that upgrading to Mavericks on a large scale bears some risk. I have been running 10.9 on my laptop since it was released (gotta eat the dog food first) and have found a few bugs that affect its use on our network (and just niggly client side ones).

 

The problems are big enough that I decided not to roll it out on our network yet. I'm hoping 10.9.1 will have enough improvements fixes to resolve the issues holding us back from rolling it out, but at least a month of testing post-release will be required before I would decide on that.

 

So, you may want to hold off, but I would certainly encourage testing how you're going to deploy it en masse and if 10.9 hasn't caused any problems at your site and your setup, then let us know how the deployment goes!