HodgeHi

Could there be any filtering configured for the clients? I'm not sure if this would be the case as I've never used the filtering options.

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.

Go to http://www.deploystudio.com and download the ksmbprintd. This will enable the print queue to use Kerberos printing authentication on your clients. All you need to do is install the file on all your clients. And then using a client to manage the queues add the print queue using the new ksmb:// option to the list. You can then use WGM to manage the queues for each machine. What I do is have a os x machine that is used to manage the queues for the clients. I have each queue already set up on this machine and this machine is used to manage them in WGM. Once everything is set up, printing to windows queues is seamless, no authentication required and no need to edit configuration files. Hope this makes sense.

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.

When managing os x client it is good practice to have an additional client machine in your office. This will help you with the creation of the managed preferences. Especially shared area login items as these cannot be mounted directly on the server anyway. For example managing a shared area you can open WGM on your client and then mount the share you wish to add the the list. Then in WGM click on the login items option and drag and drop the share into the window. You can also click the open this using the logged in users name and password option under this window. This will then allow the user to mount the share automatically using the username and password given during the login process.

Also when managing additional preferences using WGM, you can't always have the preferences set to "always be managed". You have to change it to "often" or even just "once".

You could possibly do this by managing the computer itself. However, some things cannot be managed using the computer preferences if I remember right but you may ne able to get away with it. Depends on what you want to manage.

No, you won't need to re-create the image. And you should be able to update deploy studio without losing any of the images already present. The .nbi file is what is used to reboot the client. All deploy studio does is leverages the net boot process of the Apple server to boot the client from the network. You create a .nbi file using deploy studio because it loads its own frameworks (hence the reason the file is around 1.4GB in size) Once the client is net booted it then passes all of the information stored in the net boot file (.nbi) to the imaging process. Also some of the settings may be in the workflow too. I can't remember. Most importantly though, the creation of the .nbi file takes around 10 minutes. It will still be able to use the image of the client you have even if it was 10 years old.

You need to make sure that the .nbi file has the correct settings in it for the server, share and user authentication. The best way of doing this is to perhaps create a new one. If you are going to do this then you may as well update deploy studio to the latest version as if you do this but don't update the .nbi's as well then you will run into trouble during the boot process. This might be what you are seeing if you have already updated the server version and not updated the .nbi This is perhaps the biggest pain when using deploy studio but its easily overcome by creating an updated .nbi as i mentioned just. Be aware, I'm going through all of this from memory as its been a while since I have had to go through the process myself.

To restart the netboot service you need to use server admin. If you don't know what server admin is then I would suggest further reading of apples documentation. To restart the deploystudio service you need to go to the server that deploy studio is installed on and then go to system preferences. There should be a deploystudio option. Just turn it off and then back on again. The NFS Service may not gave an option to restart. It may be part of the netboot service. I can't recall if apple changed the way the NFS service worked. I have a vague recollection of not seeing a stop or restart option. Alternatively just reboot the entire server.

Are the users local? If so using ARD may be the answer here. Using ARD you can specify the full path and copy the file directly into the users preferences folder. If you are planning to create the users on the local machine but have yet to do so then you could just copy the preference into the default profile on the client. However, if you have yet to create the users on the local machines then I would suggest creating a temp user to create a template home dir of your own and then overwriting the default template on the clients. This way each user will pick up a home dir that yu have pre-created with all the preferences that you have set, similar to a mandatory profile on windows. It all depends how you are approaching this. In theory you could do all of this using ARD. If you have not got ARD then buy it. It's a no-brainer and perhaps Apple's best piece of software.

A lot of people tend to skip the deploy studio admin guide and I'm not quite sure why. It is quite straight forward, clear and gives you all the info you need. I tried creating a guide myself but couldn't get anything better than what w already there. The quick start guide is also good and short as well if time is limited. One other thing as well. Not sure if this has been fixed. But I have had issues where if a previous deployment is cancelled the hard way after net booting the cancellation can sometimes cause the NetBoot service or the NFS service to freeze. It is sometimes worth restarting the NetBoot service and NFS service if you are having net booting issues. Also restarting the deploy studio service (found in system preferences) is worth doing to.

This may well be your problem. I tried to image a MacBook with just windows on and couldn't get it to start. I think it needs something to be there on the hdd from os x to start the process. If this isn't your newest hardware what you could try is creating a .nbi file using the latest apple kit you have. By using the latest apple kit (and also using the same version of deploy studio that is on the server) you can create a .nbi file that will boot any of the previous generation macs. This is perhaps one of the best things about macs when it comes to net booting. If this doesn't work then maybe time to break out carbon copy cloner?

If you haven't created the user home dies yet you could out the plist file in the users preferences folder. Then when you do create the home dies it will already be there. Alternatively you could open WGM and go to preferences and and then details think and add the plist file there.

You need to put the deploy studio server in the proxy exceptions list. You will know if this is working as it should since when running through the deploy studio assistant on the server if it can mount the share the it is fine. When booting a client from the network the settings for the deploy studio server are in the .nbi file that is used to boot the client. A .nbi file has to be made for the clients using the deploy studio reboot file creator. It is found when running the deploy studio setup assistant. The way I do it is install deploy studio on the client run the assistant, create the .nbi file and save it locally or to an external drive and then copy it into the nebootSP0 folder on the server. This is then used by the NetBoot server to boot the clients over the network. During the creation of the .nbi file it will ask for the information to find your deploy studio server and the share and also the username to access the share where the images are found, if I remember right. This is the bit you may need to re-create.

Hey Tony, Hope things are ok. Don't know if you are aware of this but boot picker was picked up by apple from mike bombich and has recently been updated. The system preference is now a 64 bit preference, at least to the extent that you no longer need to close and re-open system preferences. Also boot picker can also be managed by WGM. maybe this is a reason for slow updates. DNS perhaps? Anyway if you search for boot picker I think a link pops up for Apple's education section of their website. It is only intended for education establishments though as far as I'm aware from a licensing point of view.

The AFP share settings are found in the nbi file (used to netboot the clients). Make sure that all the settings in this file are correct. Also check the log on the screen during process. It may give more information as to the reason the repository couldn't be mounted. I think you can also do this from the deploystudio admin GUI.

AFP share not being found? Permissions not correct? There could be a few reasons. More information would be needed to better help resolve the issue. Can the share be mounted on the deploystudio server using the name and password given for the deploystudio user?

I think you're looking at augmented records if I'm not mistaken. Augmented records override settings on login. Instead of writing to schemas (which in the case of the AD) they have no access to, mac clients get aroun this by 'merging' records from it's own schema on login overwriting the default attribute. I think this is how most dual home dirs are configured. However how you go about doing this I don't know, but take a look at Apple's education /technology videos. I think I watched one which went through the process of creating augmented records.

The terminal access point in the EULA seems a little odd giving that one of Lion's selling points is it now has multiple VNC connections allowed at one time. Is this not a form of terminal sessions?

I think so. I have seen it where it disappears for a few seconds. Usually when the Network Accounts status changes and gets updated and also I think when IP address is obtained. The info is all in the login window so I assume that whenever the info is changed the login window is refreshed to update and bootpicker disappears for a few seconds. 10 seconds though seems a little long.

There's an app in the mac store that I used to find some specs for a mac. If you haven't a machine that can run the mac app store then you can download it from their website. Both are free. Mac app store link: Mactracker on the Mac App Store Website link: Mactracker - Get Info on any Mac

I created local home dirs for the video editing on our macs. I used a script to create the home dirs and pushed it out using ARD so you don't need to go to each machine and create them manually if you already have them imaged and ready to go. Edit: here's the script. #Creating a new local user dscl localhost -create /Local/Default/Users/video dscl localhost -create /Local/Default/Users/video UserShell /bin/bash dscl localhost -create /Local/Default/Users/video RealName "Video Editing" dscl localhost -create /Local/Default/Users/video UniqueID 502 dscl localhost -create /Local/Default/Users/video PrimaryGroupID 20 dscl localhost -create /Local/Default/Users/video home /Local/Users/video dscl localhost -passwd /Local/Default/Users/video password Run as the Root user.

I only mention server as it was mentioned above my post

Lion server is utter pants as well, so I would steer clear of it completely. Lion is 10.7 in case you weren't sure Snow leopard (10.6) can boot and install directly from the DVD so no need to install leopard (10.5) beforehand. You can possibly get snow leopard from places such Used Mac at Scrumpymac.co.uk