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Having trouble creating NetRestore images.

I am pulling out what little hair I have on this one, so any help is greatly appreciated.


I am creating a NetRestore image of a 10.8.2 laptop, connected (firewaire) to a server running 10.8.2. System Image Utility does it's thing, says it's done. I can make it availlable.


This is where the hilarity ensues.


It ends up being a NetBoot image. No matter what settings I check, whether I use the "custom" option or not, every image I have made that should have ended up a NetRestore image, boots the laptops I am trying to image with the very same image, but only as a NetBoot.


I even attempted to make a NetInstall image from my Mountain Lion installer, and it does the same exact thing and it ends up making a NetBoot image.


All created images end up in a .nbi folder, all in the correct folder to be served from.


Please tell me I am missing something simple, I cannot keep creating an image of the same computer expecting a different result. Isn't that the definition of insanity?


Help?

Mac Pro, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2), 2X2.4 GHz Quad-Core Intel X20GB RAM

Posted on Mar 4, 2013 5:21 PM

Reply
12 replies

Mar 5, 2013 7:59 AM in response to LONGTIME

I'm fumbling through this process as well and find it incredible that there is practically nothing from Apple which documents the full process that is required of us. All I have been able to find are a few paragraphs which tell me that I want NETBOOT images for getting my computers up to the point of being imaged and that I want NETRESTORE images for cloning of these machines. Apart from that I feel as though I'm left on my own to figure out HOW I'm supposed to make it work.


That being said, I can't tell you what is wrong in your specific case but I can offer two suggestions:


1) I was told on 3/1/13 by a senior apple enterprise guy that you can't perform the IMAGE creation on the server if the two machines have different hardware. Lets say you have your laptop connected to an imac running the server app...you can't boot your laptop into TARGET DISK MODE (TDM) with firewire/thunderbolt to the imac and run the SYSTEM IMAGE UTILITY and expect the process to give you what you desire. I've proven to myself that you can do it but I was told flat out that this won't work because the machine that runs the SIU will build an image for that type of hardware and you can't then push the image out to a different machine. So in this case you end up with an imac image that you couldn't deploy to your laptops, even though the source image came from a laptop.


Apparently you will need to use a 2nd laptop in this scenario to run the SIU; or you can boot the machine onto another volume and run the SIU from that volume against the source volume. You could do this by booting the machine into recovery mode using R at startup and use the restore options to put a clean O/S onto an external drive-then boot to that drive and run SIU against your source.



2) I've found something called the PENN STATE MACADMINS

http://macadmins.psu.edu


they have published lengthy videos and associated PDFs of those presentations which are supposed to help folks like us. The problem that I'm running into with what is currently posted is that it is for 10.7, not 10.8. I'm currently wading through it and trying my best to work out the differences myself.


-good luck

Mar 5, 2013 8:26 AM in response to LONGTIME

It sounds like, maybe, you aren't booting into the image that you think you are?


If you are consistently booting into a NetBoot image, I'd have to question if you are booting by holding the 'N' key? This boots into the image labeled as "Default" on the server. Select the image you want to boot from in Startup Disk instead.


You can verify the boot image by booting in verbose mode (hold down the 'V' key or modify your boot-args and add '-v'. During the boot process, the path of the image being booted (either NFS or HTTP) will be displayed as part of the boot logging.

Mar 5, 2013 8:38 AM in response to nothanks-really

Sorry, but your "senior apple enterprise guy" is wrong. Or at least gave you a very abbreviated version of the truth.


An image made from a release build of the OS will boot any machine which that OS can be installed on. So, 10.8.2 (12C60), downloaded from the Mac App Store, will boot any machine that was released before 10.8.2 shipped. The caveat to this is that a hardware release of 10.8.2 will only boot the specific hardware it was released on. Hardware releases of the OS have 4 digit build codes (i.e. 12C2020).


Hardware releases of the OS occur when a machine ships after an update occurs, but before the next release. For example... Apple ships 10.8.2, then a new CPU 2 weeks later. That CPU will have a specific hardware release on it. The next general release (10.8.3) will have support for all of the machines that were suppored in 10.8.2 and will add support for any CPU that were released after 10.8.2, but before 10.8.3.

Mar 5, 2013 10:07 AM in response to Brian Nesse

I wish it were that. I am actually working from a freshly installed 10.8.2 server with only the one image I am working with. When I found it did not work, I trashed it and created another. I did this mainly as a troubleshooting step, but it has helkped me determine that I am booting to the image I want it to boot to and not another by mistake.

Mar 5, 2013 10:11 AM in response to nothanks-really

I have thought that as well, and I usually do the 2 partition trick ( partitiont he HDD into 2 dives, my image build on one, basic on the other and used that one to create the image) and this has worked since Apple removed FW from the MacBooks.


I did try making this image from the server itelf with the laptop connected via target disk mode, from the laptop itself using the 2 partition method mentioned above, as well as using another MacBook of the same exact model (yes, same order, same ship date, same model) and all of the NetRestore images created end up booting the machine as a NetBoot image.

Mar 6, 2013 8:21 AM in response to LONGTIME

If you look inside the created .nbi folder, there should be a disk image. It will be named either NetInstall.dmg or NetBoot.dmg. That, in itself, should tell you what type of image was created.


The other thing you can do is to look at the log files (~/Library/Logs/System Image Utility). They should contain statements similar to 'Creating NetRestore from Install Media'.


That should help determine what you are really building.

Mar 6, 2013 8:48 AM in response to Brian Nesse

That's one of the oddest things about this. Those that I created as NetInstall images are NetInstall, and those that I created as NetRestore are NetRestore, but both are booting the computer as if though it's a NetBoot image. I also ran an additional test yesterday and moved the NetRestore image to an older 10.6 server, and it did the NetRestore just fine. Am I missing a setting in server for 10.8?

Mar 7, 2013 8:12 AM in response to LONGTIME

Sorry, but we're back to "you aren't booting into the image that you think you are". It's not possible for a NetInstall or NetRestore image to boot like a NetBoot image (i.e. into the finder.)


Are you sure the machines aren't simply failing to boot over the network at all? In that case they will simply fail back to booting from their internal drive.

Mar 7, 2013 8:20 AM in response to Brian Nesse

I am 100% positive I am booting to the image I am trying to boot to.


I am only leaving one image on the server at a time, removing the others from the netbootsp0 folder

the imagine in the .nbi folder states either NetRestore or NetInstall

Once the computer boots, I have 2 HDD's on the desktop, the now NetBooted HDD, and the internal HDD



Believe me, I know it sounds crazy, I spun my wheels on this for over a week until I got frustrated enough to start asking for help.


Next is a reinsallation of the server OS.

Mar 7, 2013 10:24 AM in response to LONGTIME

Lets take a step back for a minute and let us assume that you have indeed created a NETRESTORE image.


?how are you booting your target machine(s)?


It may be possible to boot to a NETRESTORE image and use it as a NETBOOT image if you press N while starting up. I'm not sure about this.


When I press OPTION at startup I'm given the option to boot to the local disk or to my images contained in NETBOOTSPx. When I boot to the NETBOOT image it is just like I pressed N rather than OPTION. However, when I select the NETRESTORE images then I'm prompted to install that image onto a target disk...at which point I select the MACINTOSH HD and then the machine gets cloned.


-I'm am assuming you want to clone using your NETRESTORE image...either clarify what your intent is, how you are booting your target(s), or else give this a go.


good luck

Mar 8, 2013 10:17 AM in response to nothanks-really

I do want to use my NetRestore image to clone to the other laptops we are setting up. I only created the NetInstall from the Mountain Lion Installer to test and see if I was going crazy. Even doing that gave me the same result.


I have tried both setting the startup disk in System Prefs, holding option at boot and selecting the NetRestore image, and also holding down N at boot as it is the default image being served (also the only image)


Hopefully I'll have time this weekend to redo the server and see if I get a different result.

Having trouble creating NetRestore images.

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