Deploystudio Machine names

[Greenbeast]

I thought i had figured out enough of deploystudio to get my new suite ready for term but maybe not...

 

I've setup the workflow to restore an image, ask for a machine name, bind to OD and then bind to AD.

 

It does all those steps successfully, except that when it's finished and brings up the login screen the machine name is the same as the master machine, with a number in brackets, different for each machine

i.e. imac-04 (5), imac-04(121).

 

I thought the point of adding the machine name stage into the workflow was to configure this, where am i going wrong?

[SC92]

I had this problem before, although as we don't have that many macs at the moment I find it's more reliable to do it manually but when the time comes (I hope!) if we ever get any more i'll have to work out how to setup the workflow. Are you restoring an image to re-tweak or building a client onto the domain?

[Greenbeast]

I guess building a client on to a domain, i've got 20 machines but had been working and perfecting one only, to then image and roll out

[SC92]

Yes I only perfect one and then roll the image out too. It turns out that I only had problems with one machine inparticular, as in I moved to the next one, restored the image, and everything seemed fine. I deleted the AD of the 'faulty' client and then just restored the image to tweak it as i've been told clients sometimes do not unbind themselves from AD correctly when restoring images to them, heavens knows why. Works a treat now though!

[SC92]

Another thing i've noticed, when you create an image make sure not to include any client name (e.g. imac01) into the image name, i've found this generally screws things up a lot. I just usually rename my images to the date and the most relevant software i've installed onto the image.

[morganw]

OS X will attempt to set an initial hostname by using a reverse DNS lookup on the current IP address. If you have short DHCP leases or the workstation name has changed then things can get a bit hit and miss. If you used DHCP reservations you could probably join a domain with right name every time, otherwise I would suggest always doing the domain join manually so the hostname can be checked.

[HodgeHi]

You can specify the hostname / computer name in deploy studio for the clients. You do this when adding the computers to the groups. For example, create a group called it suite and then in this group add the clients by mac address. Once the machines you want a in this group then click the first one and then enter a hostname in the fields at the bottom of the window. When you click save it will ask if you wish to apply this to all the members in the group. Click yes and it will assign the hostname to the rest. It will add a number suffix to the end for each client such as 01,02 etc

 

Also when imaging machines, don't use one hostname and bind to the OD and AD, as when you remove one client because the rest have the same name these too will stop working with the OD and AD.

 

if you have the same hostname on all clients it's best to rename them and then bind the clients afterwards using ARD.

[morganw]

My hostnames are specified in DeployStudio and get overwritten by the reverse DNS values.

[HodgeHi]

The way I have mine set up is to have the os x clients using reserved dhcp addresses and having reverse and forward dns records scavenged every 5 days to remove old and unneeded records.

 

 

Windows uses the ip because its in the reserved table but os x needs to be set up with manual ip address with dhcp since for some reason leaving it as dhcp means it ignores the fact that the ip is reserved for that mac address. My dhcp service is on the windows server.

 

There is also a way to get the mac clients to update their records by adding a user to do this for them in AD.

 

If you would like to see how this is done let me know and I will see if I can dig out the info I used.

[Greenbeast]

I don't understand the purpose of the Hostname screen in the DS workflow then?

 

That's what i used so that when they'd all had the image downloaded it would ask for a computer name and then i could go round the room and type the, in in sequential order.

 

Can i not do that?

[HodgeHi]

The hostname and the computer name are different. The computer name is the name found in the sharing pane in system preferences. The name with the number between brackets is the computer name. I think the local hostname changes depending on the IP address it gets.

 

In deploystudio under the Computers lists there is the option to specify Local Hostname and Computer Name. These are specified by the mac address of the machine.

 

I've never used the workflows to deploy hostnames so can't comment on how these work.

[Greenbeast]

hmmm, i have the local hostname and computer name set in the computer list in DS and yet it ignores these when rolling out an image.

I'm going to try again.

[Ashm]

We've managed to get DeployStudio to allow us to enter the hostname and then it will join to AD then OD and the entered names are set in both AD and OD.

 

The workflow we have is to deploy the image, then the hostname form, then the configure task with Rename computer ticked, then AD binding task then OD binging task. It wasn't until I had set the configure task that it would actually set the entered name for both AD and OD.

[Greenbeast]

Thanks for that Ashm, this seems to be working, i'm now having trouble with OD binding, it's complaining about the machine name already existing....