abillybob Posted February 18, 2016 Posted February 18, 2016 (edited) Hey Peeps So some of the Macs here are around 1 year old and they don't have a problem but the other old one's that are made in 2008 will boot via Netboot and show the first initial DeployStudio screen. Then they go to a white screen, show a crash message and restart to do it all over again. Does anyone know why this might be and what i can do to resolve the issue? I have checked and I'm pretty sure these macs are just in the bracket to be able to run El Capitan (The version of image we're deploying). Thanks abillybob Edited February 18, 2016 by Dos_Box
Brimstone Posted February 18, 2016 Posted February 18, 2016 I presume you are using the latest version of DS? You should always create your netboot image from the newest hardware as generally this is then backwards compatible although check that this is a unified OS in the image, some brand new Macs can ship with a custom version of the OS.
3s-gtech Posted February 18, 2016 Posted February 18, 2016 Do you have the model number of these Macs?
abillybob Posted February 18, 2016 Author Posted February 18, 2016 I presume you are using the latest version of DS? You should always create your netboot image from the newest hardware as generally this is then backwards compatible although check that this is a unified OS in the image, some brand new Macs can ship with a custom version of the OS. I am the very latest version. Only set it all up 2 weeks ago! I have done what you said and created it from the newest macs here. How would I check if it's a unified OS? The iMacs are around 2 years old (our newest one's) the older model we have are around 2008-2009 models I think. How do I get the model number of them? About Mac?
3s-gtech Posted February 18, 2016 Posted February 18, 2016 It should be written in very small text on the bottom of the base on that model I think. I don't think there's an issue with the model as iMacs will run El Capitan going back to some very old models, but it's important to check. If it's an Aluminium model, there should be no issue if 2GB or more RAM is installed.
abillybob Posted February 18, 2016 Author Posted February 18, 2016 It should be written in very small text on the bottom of the base on that model I think. I don't think there's an issue with the model as iMacs will run El Capitan going back to some very old models, but it's important to check. If it's an Aluminium model, there should be no issue if 2GB or more RAM is installed. It is an aluminium model and it has 2GB DDR2 memory inside I can't get into the Mac suite for a couple minutes as we have builders in doing some work in there but will check as soon as I can. I was thinking maybe it had something to do with the Mac server and the image I've created being from a 64bit machine and that maybe the old one's are 32bit? I went into Verbose mode and it gives me a CPU panic error message.
Brimstone Posted February 18, 2016 Posted February 18, 2016 If you have the serial number you can check the model here... https://checkcoverage.apple.com/gb/en/;jsessionid=FydsWFyGrScBPpxL3GXTXFJZ9P9tPV5MZL6Np8MhbXtsZ1y50b18!-423580716
abillybob Posted February 18, 2016 Author Posted February 18, 2016 If you have the serial number you can check the model here... https://checkcoverage.apple.com/gb/en/;jsessionid=FydsWFyGrScBPpxL3GXTXFJZ9P9tPV5MZL6Np8MhbXtsZ1y50b18!-423580716 This is what it tells me
Arthur Posted February 18, 2016 Posted February 18, 2016 This is what it tells me Your iMac does have 64-bit EFI and supports El Capitan according to this... http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/imac/specs/imac-core-2-duo-2.0-20-inch-aluminum-specs.html
abillybob Posted February 19, 2016 Author Posted February 19, 2016 Hmmm what would be the reason it's failing then
abillybob Posted February 19, 2016 Author Posted February 19, 2016 I'd really appreciate any kind of help with this A lot of time and effort has gone into setting all this up and I've come to a dead end. I really don't know what else to try!
DJ-1701 Posted February 19, 2016 Posted February 19, 2016 I must admit, I haven't used DeployStudio, but out of interest, have you tried updating to the latest OSX version via the Mac Store? I am just wondering if there are firmware updates that need to be made before using this imaging method.
abillybob Posted February 19, 2016 Author Posted February 19, 2016 I must admit, I haven't used DeployStudio, but out of interest, have you tried updating to the latest OSX version via the Mac Store? I am just wondering if there are firmware updates that need to be made before using this imaging method. I'm giving it a go now
3s-gtech Posted February 19, 2016 Posted February 19, 2016 Personally, I would look at building a new separate image for the iMacs on DS, then deploying that. Obviously there's a time cost, but it should help to work out what's going on. I use separate images for my old iMacs and newer Mac Minis for this reason.
abillybob Posted February 19, 2016 Author Posted February 19, 2016 Personally, I would look at building a new separate image for the iMacs on DS, then deploying that. Obviously there's a time cost, but it should help to work out what's going on. I use separate images for my old iMacs and newer Mac Minis for this reason. I wouldn't be able to because even if I did create the image it won't boot into deploy studio at all so I can't capture the image. It crashes just before my workflow kicks in.
AntonioRocco Posted February 19, 2016 Posted February 19, 2016 (edited) You don't need to boot into DeployStudio to create a network bootloader OS for that model iMac. Install DeployStudio on that particular Mac and create one afresh. When done upload the resulting nbi to the Server's NetBootSP0 folder; enable it in the NetInstall service; uninstall DeployStudio on that iMac and, hopefully, it should boot without crashing? I could be wrong but the kernel panic screenshot does look like an incompatible hardware issue with the bootloading OS that Mac is trying to use? What is strange is you should be able to use the nbi created from your latest hardware to boot all your other hardware. But if your latest hardware is, for example, the latest model iMac and you created an nbi immediately after taking it out of the box then that may cause a problem for older hardware? Without being there it's difficult to help further but creating a hardware specific nbi for that model iMac may at least get you further than the point you're at now? Antonio Rocco (ACSA) Edited February 19, 2016 by AntonioRocco
abillybob Posted February 19, 2016 Author Posted February 19, 2016 Thanks for all your help peeps Right I have a plan. I'm going to upgrade one of the Macs to the latest version of El Capitan. I am then going to create a bootable USB (because for some reason the command won't work on Lion) then I'm going to re-image the machine and create a new image all together. From here I attempt again to connect to the Mac server and upload the image. If it's still failing I will do it locally by installing deploy studio on the client and manually transfer the image to the Mac Server. Here's hoping... I only have today to get all this done!!! I'll keep the thread updated!
abillybob Posted February 22, 2016 Author Posted February 22, 2016 Still can't get this flaming thing to work!!! Keeps failing and if IO create the image locally and move it over to the server it does the same again... Crashes then restart. I literally don't know what else I can try and I've researched for hours on other things to try also so if anyone can shed some light I'd really appreciate it!!
jdell Posted February 22, 2016 Posted February 22, 2016 Abillybob, I saw a simular issue on a deployment from DS to a mix fleet of Mac's. This was with the latest DS version. The trick I found that solved the issue was to make the netboot image on a iMac with the newest hardware, but make the image using a Yosemite workstation as the changes to the underlying OS that have been made for El Capitain can cause major issue on boot for different hardware. You can still deploy a image of El Captiain from the Yosemite boot space with DS , it just seems to prevent these kernal dump errors on boot. Hope that helps
abillybob Posted February 24, 2016 Author Posted February 24, 2016 Abillybob, I saw a simular issue on a deployment from DS to a mix fleet of Mac's. This was with the latest DS version. The trick I found that solved the issue was to make the netboot image on a iMac with the newest hardware, but make the image using a Yosemite workstation as the changes to the underlying OS that have been made for El Capitain can cause major issue on boot for different hardware. You can still deploy a image of El Captiain from the Yosemite boot space with DS , it just seems to prevent these kernal dump errors on boot. Hope that helps Thanks for that pal. Tried it yesterday but still having the same sort of problems Really don't know what else I can try now I'm slowly giving up! It's weird because it worked perfectly fine on one of the old iMacs but was intermittent as to whether it would work or not but on the others I just can't get it to work.
manxdan Posted February 25, 2016 Posted February 25, 2016 I have found it necessary to use two net boot images. The one made on our latest hardware does exactly as you describe on our ~2008 vintage iMacs. fortunately, I still have the nbi that I used originally to image the 2008 models. The nbi can be an older OS than the one your deploying. Suggest you use DS to create another nbi using the older hardware. You can switch the nbi's on or off in OSX server's netboot settings as required.
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