HodgeHi Posted November 17, 2008 Posted November 17, 2008 A sad day for the many that have come to love Net-restore for deployment. Version 3.4.6 is to be the last one. Read the full article here: Bombich Software: NetRestore
dougchase Posted November 17, 2008 Posted November 17, 2008 Do you know anything about DeployStudio? It looks great but the documentation is pretty lacking. I'm just getting started, trying to get a dual-boot deployment situation working.
HodgeHi Posted November 17, 2008 Author Posted November 17, 2008 you can still download net restore if you want to use it. It's just that it won't be being updated anymore. As for deploy studio. I looked at it briefly when it was in beta but never used it for deployment. IIRC, you needed to have a server side app as well. I may loo into it again at some point but the net-restore was just simple to use (when it worked ;-))
dougchase Posted November 17, 2008 Posted November 17, 2008 I understand. I was pretty close to getting NetRestore to work, but never quite got there. The docs for DeployStudio are pretty much useless, so I'm going back to see if I can figure out NetRestore. I just wish there was a good tutorial on how to do dual-boot deployments. I found this forum recently and it sure seems like the place to post when I have questions about this sort of thing, though.
DMcCoy Posted November 17, 2008 Posted November 17, 2008 (edited) I've always used netinstall/netboot. No multicast, but it's pretty quick still (on intels, nothing is quick on g5 or earlier) Edited November 17, 2008 by DMcCoy
HodgeHi Posted November 17, 2008 Author Posted November 17, 2008 what's the issue that you are seeing? I am in the middle of net-restoring myself at the moment so may be able to help. I have started a blog post and am half way through it. I will let you know when it is done.
dougchase Posted November 17, 2008 Posted November 17, 2008 Well, thanks! In the past, I've successfully netbooted and restored each side individually by choosing the images from the NetRestore interface on the client side, but my goal is to get this automated so all I have to do is boot to the NetBoot server and the images will automatically apply. I'm getting stuck at the point after I have created my DMGs and am trying to create a NetInstall-Set. I choose "edit configurations," and have created configurations for both my Windows and Mac partitions. However, I'm not clear on what to do next. I have an open NetRestore window, an open NetRestore Helper window, and a mounted NetInstall-Restore volume on my desktop. I guess I'm confused about how to save my changes and additions to the configurations. If I close the NetRestore Helper window and the NetRestore window, the NetInstall-Restore disk stays mounted on my desktop. Is this what's supposed to happen?
dougchase Posted November 17, 2008 Posted November 17, 2008 (edited) I'm going to take notes here as I go through the process this time. ----- I have a partition on the NetBoot server called Images. Under Images, there's the NetBootSP0 share point. In the share point, under /Resources/Disk Images, I have DMG masters of sysprepped Windows and OSX. ----- On the NetBoot server: Launch NetRestore Helper Select "Create NetInstall-Set" tab Accept default Advanced settings Click "Save NetInstall-Restore set" button Save set to /Volumes/Images/Library/NetBoot/NetBootSP0 NetRestore: Disk image called "NetInstall-Restore" mounts on desktop NetRestore: Copying System files to disk image... Select "Yes" when asked to modify NetRestore configurations NetRestore window appears. This is where I sort of start to get confused. What should I select in the "Source" and "Target" fields now? Just for kicks, I added my two configurations, chose Full Automation, and configured the Preferences/Configurations. Enabled the new NetInstall Image and set it as Default. Booted a test Mini to NetBoot. Now it's successfully restoring the Mac side with no user intervention - looks like I'm getting there. I wonder what will happen after it finishes this first partition. Edited November 17, 2008 by dougchase
torledo Posted November 17, 2008 Posted November 17, 2008 I've always used netinstall/netboot. No multicast, but it's pretty quick still (on intels, nothing is quick on g5 or earlier) same here....if only they could provide a nice lite gui wrapper for mASR that looks and acts a lot like netinstall. I like the light touch aspect of netinstall when used in conjuctoin with SIU and netboot.
dougchase Posted November 17, 2008 Posted November 17, 2008 (edited) Gah, crap. "NetRestore failed to restore the Windows." Maybe I'll post logs. ======= NetRestore (v. 3.4.6): Mon Nov 17 20:20:07 UTC 2008 ======= Source: /tmp/netboot/Resources/Disk Images/mini-osx.dmg Target: /Volumes/Macintosh Target Device: /dev/disk0s2 Arguments: --noprompt --erase Path to NetRestore: /Applications/Utilities/NetRestore.app/ NetBooted: Yes Boot volume OS info: Operating System: 10.5.1 (9B2117) Mach kernel version: Darwin Kernel Version 9.1.1: Fri Dec 14 19:00:14 PST 2007; root:xnu-1228.1.30~1/RELEASE_I386 Kernel configured for up to 2 processors. 2 processors are physically available. 2 processors are logically available. Processor type: i486 (Intel 80486) Processors active: 0 1 Primary memory available: 2.00 gigabytes Default processor set: 30 tasks, 110 threads, 2 processors Load average: 0.45, Mach factor: 1.55 Mounted volume information: Filesystem 512-blocks Used Available Capacity Mounted on /dev/disk1s9 3773896 3018240 717920 81% / devfs 226 226 0 100% /dev fdesc 2 2 0 100% /dev /dev/disk2 934 16 872 2% /Volumes /dev/disk3 190 26 156 15% /private/var/run /dev/disk4 1926 150 1680 9% /private/var/log /dev/disk5 2918 150 2624 6% /private/tmp /dev/disk6 2918 370 2404 14% /private/var/db 141.211.159.63:/Volumes/Images/Library/NetBoot/NetBootSP0 1952458672 80921944 1871536728 5% /private/tmp/netboot /dev/disk0s2 70070352 108664 69961688 1% /Volumes/Macintosh /dev/disk0s3 163659456 192 163659264 1% /Volumes/WINDOWS Source information: -rw-r--r-- 1 501 admin 9031569818 Nov 8 00:39 /tmp/netboot/Resources/Disk Images/mini-osx.dmg 20:20:08 Initiating ASR restore... 20:20:22 Restoring... 21:49:37 Verifying... 21:56:20 Restore complete ======= NetRestore (v. 3.4.6): Mon Nov 17 21:56:28 UTC 2008 ======= Source: /tmp/netboot/Resources/Disk Images/mini-win.dmg Target: /Volumes/WINDOWS Target Device: /dev/disk0s3 Arguments: --noprompt --erase Path to NetRestore: /Applications/Utilities/NetRestore.app/ NetBooted: Yes Boot volume OS info: Operating System: 10.5.1 (9B2117) Mach kernel version: Darwin Kernel Version 9.1.1: Fri Dec 14 19:00:14 PST 2007; root:xnu-1228.1.30~1/RELEASE_I386 Kernel configured for up to 2 processors. 2 processors are physically available. 2 processors are logically available. Processor type: i486 (Intel 80486) Processors active: 0 1 Primary memory available: 2.00 gigabytes Default processor set: 31 tasks, 109 threads, 2 processors Load average: 0.21, Mach factor: 1.77 Mounted volume information: Filesystem 512-blocks Used Available Capacity Mounted on /dev/disk1s9 3773896 3018240 717920 81% / devfs 226 226 0 100% /dev fdesc 2 2 0 100% /dev /dev/disk2 934 16 872 2% /Volumes /dev/disk3 190 28 154 16% /private/var/run /dev/disk4 1926 230 1600 13% /private/var/log /dev/disk5 2918 150 2624 6% /private/tmp /dev/disk6 2918 370 2404 14% /private/var/db 141.211.159.63:/Volumes/Images/Library/NetBoot/NetBootSP0 1952458672 80921944 1871536728 5% /private/tmp/netboot /dev/disk0s3 163659456 192 163659264 1% /Volumes/WINDOWS /dev/disk0s2 70070352 37334368 32735984 54% /Volumes/MAC-CLONE Source information: -rw-r--r-- 1 501 admin 6491559556 Nov 10 20:14 /tmp/netboot/Resources/Disk Images/mini-win.dmg 21:56:28 Initiating ASR restore... Could not change the partition typeMounting volume: /dev/disk0s3 (0)... succeeded Failed to grab a copy of the boot.ini file Ejecting device: /dev/disk0 (0)... succeeded NTFS start sector: 70742136 Removing the NTFS partition from the partition table... succeeded Ejecting device: /dev/disk0 (0)... succeeded Adjusting entries in the partition table... succeeded Ejecting device: /dev/disk0 (0)... succeeded Adding the NTFS partition to the partition table... succeeded Ejecting device: /dev/disk0 (0)... failed, trying again Ejecting device: /dev/disk0 (1)... succeeded Resizing the NTFS volume to extend to the limit of the partition... ntfsresize v2.0.0 (libntfs 10:0:0) Failed to startup volume: Invalid argument. ERROR(22): Opening '/dev/disk0s3' as NTFS failed: Invalid argument The device '/dev/disk0s3' doesn't have a valid NTFS. Maybe you selected the wrong partition? Or the whole disk instead of a partition (e.g. /dev/hda, not /dev/hda1)? This error might also occur if the disk was incorrectly repartitioned (see the ntfsresize FAQ). Edited November 17, 2008 by dougchase
Rozzer Posted November 17, 2008 Posted November 17, 2008 Thats frustrating i use netrestore so much. I just hope someone makes just as good software. Not at all happy!
HodgeHi Posted November 18, 2008 Author Posted November 18, 2008 OK. Depending on what version of Net-Restore you are using depends on how easy it is to automatically deploy the both partitions. I recommend 3.4.6 version since it has the tick box for auto deployment of both partitions. I tried to do this myself with the scripts and only got as far as creating the boot camp partitioning using the boot camp script. When using 3.4.6, the procedure goes something like this... You create your images of both the OS X and XP partitions. You can save them off onto an external HDD or just save them directly into the share where your images will be deployed from. This is your choice. You then create your Net-Install sets. Again you can save it onto an external or save it straight into your netbootsp0 share ready for booting off. If you save them to an external drive you will need to copy them into these locations afterwards. Once the Net-Install set has been created you will be asked if you wish to configure the NetRestore options. Click yes. Then go to NetRestore > Configurations in the menu bar. This will allow you to create some configurations to use to install your images. Create one for both the OS X and XP images. Config name = name of config to choose when netrestore launches on netboot Protocol = What you are going to use to deploy. If coming from a server most likely AFP sharepoint = name of share that you are using to store image .dmgs (mine is called Images) username = username used to connect to the share password = password used to connect to the share hostname/ip = hostname/ip address of server where the images are stored Relative Path to image from sharepoint = i usually type in the name of the image being used. Along the bottom of the window you should see the afp share path being built. This is the location it is going to use. Save this and then do the same for XP. ( you can just change the name of the config and the dmg being used if they are all in the same location and then just click save again) Now once these are created close the window and then go to NetRestore > preferences Heres the magic... Use the drop down menu and choose the OS X config that you just created. Use First drive available. Erase target disk. Verify restored disk. If you wish to start into OS X after rebuild tick the set as target disk. If you want XP leave this unticked. Enable full automation. Tick the Partition the target volume and choose a size. In the Windows Configuration drop-down menu, choose the windows config that we created earlier. Click save. This should be it now. Configure your Netboot server to have the netinstall set that you created to be the only one enabled and choose it to be the default. This allows you to just hold down N when rebooting to start the process. The rest should be automated. Test on a different machine to the one you built your images on. If it fails for any reason, you don't want to rebuild again since it will erase the target disk. Important note: You cannot restore to a smaller drive in XP than you created the image on. You can use larger partitions but not smaller. I don't think OS X is fussy about this so it is maybe better to use a slightly larger partition when setting the partition size in the net-restore preferences for Windows. I hope that this helps 1
dougchase Posted November 18, 2008 Posted November 18, 2008 Thanks so much! That sounds close to what I did, but as you can tell from my log above, it didn't quite behave. I am out of the office today, but I will go through your great instructions tomorrow and figure out what I've done wrong.
psydii Posted November 18, 2008 Posted November 18, 2008 I'd guess that NR3.4 doesn't work with 10.5.6 which was seeded to developers recently. This is a great shame I used netrestore to deploy 3 labs with 1 weeks learning curve from no experience to fully deployed and managed. It will be missed.
dougchase Posted November 19, 2008 Posted November 19, 2008 Hello again gents, I tried it again and received the error "An error occurred while resizing the NTFS volume." I'm figuiring this has to do with the size of the disk on which I created the Windows image. What do you think?
HodgeHi Posted November 19, 2008 Author Posted November 19, 2008 maybe. Easiest way to check would be to make the windows partition larger using the slider when configuring the fully automation in net restores preferences. Make it bigger than your image is by about 10gb and try it. If it is your image size being bigger than the partition then doing this would make it work. I have seen before that if you use 50% in boot camp and choose 50% in net restore that the re-imaging fails as the bootcamps measurement is bigger. Could be your issue too.
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