Imaging a MAC

[A5Ben]

We are beginning to purchase MAC's in our district. Most, for their own reason, want a dual boot system with SL/Win7. I wanted to ask those here that use MAC in an enterprise or school environment what you use to image?

 

I see several programs that will backup and restore the mac image but none that claim to take a single disk image that will allow me to restore bot OS's in one operation.

 

Am I missing something?

 

 

Thanks!

Ben in SC

[clareq]

Look at DeployStudio - you can create an image of each partition and then create a workflow to partition a drive and restore both images.

[morganw]

Deploy Studio is the best option and can also deploy the Windows portion of a boot camp environment as part of the workflow. Unfortunately on a Mac there is no way remotely trigger the imaging process, you have to actually stand there with your finger on the N key to get it to attempt to NetBoot. Also there is no way to pull software to install after imaging although you can incorporate pkg based installers into a Deploy Studio workflow which you can either make yourself or sometimes get from a products install media. So basically you make some big fat images with the bulk of your stuff in, customise slightly if required with the more optional bits like pkg based installs and scripts (e.g. to bind to directory servers), and then net boot everything to set it up.

 

Your main problems will actually come after this stage,

 

How do I run the apple software updates?

The system won't automatically install them so you either have to login to each machine manually and run them or remotely call an installation command when you know the systems are not in use but will be on. Some updates are things like firmware upgrades and laptops will needs to be running on the mains for the process to properly complete.

 

How do I run non-apple software updates?

You can use things like Apple Remote Desktop to send out replacement .app containers and run pkg installs but again, the machines have to be on without anyone using them, you have to do it all live rather than assign software and let the workstation pick it up. It might even be easier to do a complete netboot reinstall if you have the time and just makes changes to your original images.

Edited April 21, 2011 by morganw

[FN-GM]

These posts may help

 

http://www.edugeek.net/forums/mac/46885-using-deploy-studio-guides.html

http://www.edugeek.net/forums/mac/63100-imaging-macs.html

http://www.edugeek.net/forums/mac/50692-imaging-mac-has-bootcamp-partition.html

http://www.edugeek.net/forums/mac/39426-how-do-i-ghost-mac.html

 

Also this from apple may help

 

Apple - Education - Resources - Information Technology

[qcomer]

1 more vote for Deploy Studio!

[Arthur]

Rather than create "fat" images, you could use InstaDMG to create "thin" images, deploy them with DeployStudio and then use Munki to automatically install third-party applications and software updates (even Apple software updates and massive apps like Adobe's Creative Suite).

 

Useful links...

Mac OS X Server – Client Update Solutions (Munki vs StarDeploy)

Munki / MunkiReport / Simian

StarDeploy

Deploying Microsoft Office for Mac 2011

Apple software update options

 

Munki-specific

Getting started with Munki

Some pointers on repackaging software

Munki and Adobe CS3 / CS4 / CS5 / Office 2008

Apple software updates with Munki (Munki allows non-admin users to install Apple Software Updates)

 

Related Videos/Slides from MacSysAdmin 2009 / 2010 conferences

InstaDMG in Depth - MOV / PDF (Karl Kuehn - Lead Developer, InstaDMG)

The Challenge of System Imaging - MOV / PDF (Karl Kuehn - Lead Developer, InstaDMG)

DeployStudio - The free deployment alternative - MOV / PDF (Alan Gordon - CTO, Humac Group)

[morganw]

I was looking at Puppet for client configuration and software deployment but it isn't really click and go, it would take a few days to set everything up and I think Munki looks a bit more straightforward to use as it's OS X specific - hadn't heard of it before but looks quite nifty.

[FireSpit]

DeployStudio is by far the best, only issue being you need an OS X server to run it. Alternatively if you're just doing a couple machines you could use Carbon Copy Cloner, its great, straight forward, requires no server and can be done ethernet > ethernet or firewire > firewire.

[dayzd]

Technically, you don't need an OS X Server to run the NetBoot service - if you're prepared to go without official support, that is...

 

Make any Mac a NetBoot Server | mac geekery