Uncle_Badger
Level 1 (12 points)
Mac OS X

Q: OSX Netinstall Server Problem

UPDATE: NetInstall works on macs with an RJ45/Ethernet socket but wont work on ones that don't!

 

We have a OSX Netinstall server which dishes out about four different recipes of our company OSX image some with Adobe Creative suite, some without etc.

 

The image server is on OSX 10.11.3 and the images themselves are also OSX 10.11.3

 

This works fine on mostly all of our recent machines and we use it to regularly 'nuke & pave' troublesome/slow macs on our network or to refresh machines when there is a change of staff.

 

I recently took delivery of a brand new 13" Retina MBP A5102 variant and we can't get the Netinstall server to work on it.

 

Initially the Macbook couldn't see the images then after a while they appeared. However when we selected the image in startup disk we are getting this weird message:

"The bless tool was unable to set current boot disk"

 

I remember from way, way back (System 7 stylee) the notion of blessing the system folder but hadn't come across it in OSX.

 

To get round this I tried changing the Netinstall delivery method from HTTP to NFS but that doesn't seem to have made any difference.

 

Any input on this would be greatly appreciated.

 

For the record the new MBP arrives with 10.11.3 on board.

OS X El Capitan (10.11.2), Everything from iPads to Mac Pros

Posted on Aug 31, 2016 6:34 AM

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Uncle_Badger

Q: OSX Netinstall Server Problem

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  • Helpful answers

  • by Brian Nesse,Helpful

    Brian Nesse Brian Nesse Sep 1, 2016 1:23 PM in response to Uncle_Badger
    Level 4 (3,007 points)
    Sep 1, 2016 1:23 PM in response to Uncle_Badger

    You should move to 10.11.6 (clean installs, not upgrades), it has some NetBooting fixes.

  • by cdhw,Helpful

    cdhw cdhw Sep 1, 2016 1:23 PM in response to Uncle_Badger
    Level 4 (2,613 points)
    Servers Enterprise
    Sep 1, 2016 1:23 PM in response to Uncle_Badger

    I'm not sure whether it's the issue here, but trying to netboot new hardware with old versions of OS X is often a source of problems. Unless you have to support very old hardware, the best recipe is to build your netboot image using the current version of OS X and the newest hardware you have available.

     

    C.

  • by Uncle_Badger,

    Uncle_Badger Uncle_Badger Sep 1, 2016 1:23 PM in response to Brian Nesse
    Level 1 (12 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 1, 2016 1:23 PM in response to Brian Nesse

    Many thanks for your input on this I will try that tomorrow.

  • by Uncle_Badger,

    Uncle_Badger Uncle_Badger Sep 1, 2016 1:34 PM in response to cdhw
    Level 1 (12 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 1, 2016 1:34 PM in response to cdhw

    Thanks for your help.

     

    Well that is a fair point you make but at the time of writing this post originally a few months back it was the current version (10.11.3).

     

    We do support a wide range of hardware going back up to five years and our images work on all of them except these new MBPs

     

    I Feel the problem may lie with the target computer not being able to see the Netinstall server once it's restarted. As if it can't use the Thunderbolt to RJ45 adapter once it's restarted. It sees the Netinstall server beforehand perfectly fine when you choose the startup disk.

     

    its a real pestilence

  • by cdhw,

    cdhw cdhw Sep 1, 2016 2:03 PM in response to Uncle_Badger
    Level 4 (2,613 points)
    Servers Enterprise
    Sep 1, 2016 2:03 PM in response to Uncle_Badger

    The post I replied to was dated 31 Aug 2016, not 'a few months back'.

     

    How are you booting the clients? If you are using the recovery partition (as opposed to netbooting, which is what I assumed in my earlier reply) then you might want check the version of OS X that is installed on that and update it to OS X 10.11.6.

     

    C.

  • by Uncle_Badger,

    Uncle_Badger Uncle_Badger Sep 2, 2016 3:07 AM in response to cdhw
    Level 1 (12 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 2, 2016 3:07 AM in response to cdhw

    Well don't worry about it but that's why I put UPDATE at the top of it in red ink. Thanks for your input anyway.

     

    We aren't using the recovery partition. We are using the 'Select startup disk' option. As stated above this works on all our other Macs prior to the Retina MBP A5102 variant. Comprising of various flavours of Intel based Macs going back to around 2011. We have an estate of around 300 MBPs/iMacs/Powermacs etc.

     

    We use it every day but it just wont work on these A5102's. I need to check in with my colleague and see if he has got it to work on any of the Airs but since we already have a few in circulation and I haven't heard of it being an issue then I don't think so.

     

    For the record we are aware of the option to 'Create a NetInstall Image that supports multiple Mac Models' and are already using it.


    I am convinced this is a driver-related issue EG: it doesn't have the correct drivers to support the Thunderbolt adapter.

  • by Uncle_Badger,

    Uncle_Badger Uncle_Badger Sep 2, 2016 3:16 AM in response to Brian Nesse
    Level 1 (12 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 2, 2016 3:16 AM in response to Brian Nesse

    Hey Brian,

     

    Thanks for your input. Can you elaborate?

     

    We don't want to do clean installs on all our kit (much as I'd love to-seriously!) because of the man-hours/downtime involved in doing this on around 300 computers. Hence using imaging in the first place.

     

    Presumably you are suggesting to make a NEW image from a clean install of 10.11.6 ?

    We can only do an upgrade on the NetBoot Server itself (and have done this morning) because a clean install would obviously mean rebuilding the server which would be a severe ballache.