Multicast Imaging for Mac OS X? 69
ATomkins asks: "The school where I work has 128 new G5s which will be set up in a couple of labs. We want to completely re-image all G5s at least every semester. Ideally, we would want to use something like Ghost to push the image out to all the Macs at once; with Dell boxen, under similar circumstances, this takes about 20-30 minutes. Is there a viable alternative for OS X?"
"So far, among other things, we've tried NetInstall and ARD2, which preformed horribly, taking over 200 minutes using GigE. Our best solution has been Carbon Copy Cloner over FW800, but that costs a lot in terms of labour. UDPCast over a Gentoo LiveCD image (distributed via NetInstall) seemed promising, but is being troublesome.
Assuming block-level unicast isn't an option, does anyone have any ideas how we can make this more automated?"
NetRestore (Score:5, Informative)
Re:NetRestore (Score:2, Informative)
I work for a school district and we have a dual 1.25 G MDD G4 as a NetRestore Server. I use this to reimage labs and new machines out of the box.
Use the newest computer you have and set it up for the lab. Use Carbon Copy Cloner to create the image with. Boot the source computer in Target disk mode and plug it into your computer wi
Re:NetRestore (Score:1, Informative)
Re:NetRestore (Score:2)
I use command-line stuff and Carbon Copy Cloner to make a master, and use target-mode, disk utility, and several long firewire cables to restore labs.
If I had to automate it, I'd make a non-automounted partition with just Darwin on it, copy 'asr' and any needed files to it and boot to that to reimage the 'OS X' partition.
As far as I know, there are no multicast mac imagin
Or do it yourself (Score:2)
to set this up, start by making a hardlink copy on each computers's disk of the entrie disk:
su root
find / | cpio -dpl
this creates an (almost) no space occupying duplicate of your current disk in the subdirectory
Next when you want to push a new image simply mount the remote disk (without roosquash) and do a differential copy of the new image to the old image directory using rsyncX or rdi
Mod parent down, please - it's not correct (Score:2)
200 Minutes over Gigabit? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:200 Minutes over Gigabit? (Score:2, Informative)
Our mac image is 21 gigs compressed, or 28 gigs uncompressed.
The Dell image is 10-15 gigs, depending on the purpose of the lab.
And it was 200 minutes per machine. We had 1 Xserve serving the image to 1 dual 1.8GHz G5 over a gigabit switch and got a final time of 211:45
..Or Radmind (Score:5, Informative)
Re:..Or Radmind (Score:5, Informative)
Thoug I have to say sometimes radmind sucks, like if you go from Jaguar to Panther it can break. Though generally for minor system updates and security fixes it's okay. This is why you TEST! And if you need a full restore you use apple software restore or netrestore from Mike Bombich. I like that guy: http://www.bombich.com/ [bombich.com] But then you need an Mac OS X Server http://www.apple.com/server/macosx/ [apple.com] as I recall, in which case, you might as well by an xserve http://www.apple.com/xserve/ [apple.com] since it comes with the software. But again you will only need Bombich once a year; so you can just visit every machine with a cd ad it might be as effective as all the ASR which I found to be difficult to implement. We had to get an Apple Engineer to set it up for us. heh.
Re:..Or Radmind (Score:2, Interesting)
Simple (Score:1)
Not the easiest, perhaps, but free and effective, and only limited
Re:Simple (Score:1)
macosxlabs (Score:5, Informative)
macosxlabs [macosxlabs.org] has articles and whatnot about this, i believe:
From the site:Welcome to the web site for the Higher Education Mac OS X Lab Deployment Initiative. Our goal is to simplify the task of installing and maintaining Mac OS X in a computer lab.
Re:macosxlabs (Score:5, Informative)
If the copy operation is as slow as you are mentioning then the disk image that is being restored from probably was not properly prepared and so the image is probably being copied at the file level rather than the block level. This would cause the operation to take a great deal more time. As someone else mentioned, a man page listing of the asr shell tool under Mac OS X will show you a good discussion on optimizing restore speed. Here is a web site [hmug.org] with that man page.
Ghost 4 unix (Score:5, Informative)
g4u ("ghost for unix") is a NetBSD-based bootfloppy/CD-ROM that allows easy cloning of PC harddisks to deploy a common setup on a number of PCs using FTP."
http://www.feyrer.de/g4u/ [feyrer.de]
Re:Ghost 4 unix (Score:5, Interesting)
- Hubert (author of g4u)
why not just net-boot them and forget about it? (Score:5, Interesting)
An image is an image, right? (Score:1)
Its quite useful to have a menu'd network bootstrap at the ready for this kind of stuff, or installing whatever OS, or a nfs rooted copper Gbit media boxes (oh my).
Some thoughts (Score:2)
Mac OS X Server includes a netinstall feature, though it really just netboots clients off an install image. I think there is supposed to be an 'unmanaged' install feature, though I ha
NetRestore is capable of block-level copying (Score:2)
When I want to re-image a machine from scratch (as a side note, I haven't had to do this once in 2 years, Radmind and OS X do such a good job of keeping everything the way it should be), I just boot it while holding down the N key, NetRestore loads, I select the appropriate image, and there it goes.
A single machine takes about 10 minutes, and since the OS X Server also
OS X Server + Net Install (Score:4, Informative)
This document [apple.com] provides an overview of it, but doesn't really detail the procedure. Might at least point you in the right direction, however.
Remote Desktop (Score:1)
Mac store (Score:2)
Re:Mac store (Score:2)
SAN? (Score:2)
-psy
Re:SAN? (Score:2)
Not NetRestore (Score:5, Informative)
However, it would do his job just fine. If you've only 125 machines, and you're not pushing out more than one image, I bet you could do them all in a day or so by yourself. (A 2-gig image can be pushed to a new Mac in ten minutes or less, depending on its HD speed. If you do 24 at once--24 being a random switch port count I picked out of my head--you could do two to three sets in an hour, accounting for setup and breakdown time.) You're going to be limited by your network, mostly, as a single Xserve/NetRestore combo will tear through 20-40 machines at once, depending on image and client hardware (faster drives equals faster imaging).
Tips:
- Automate the shit out of it. NetRestore can run post-flight shell scripts and adjust computer/Rendezvous name on the way into the image process. You just gotta set it up.
- Gigabitgigabitgigabit. If you don't have a gigE uplink to the server, prepare for some
- Put your NetBoot image on one physical drive and your image(s) on another. Maximize those channels.
- Visit macosxlabs.org and read as much as you can before you start. They've been there, done it, and own the t-shirt factory.
NetRestore and NetRestore Helper are great tools, and should be just fine for 125 units.
It's called 'dd'. (Score:1, Redundant)
dd a disk image over the hard drive. I recommend
a Knoppix PPC live cd.
Re:It's called 'dd'. (Score:2)
I'm suggesting daisy-chaining the imaging process.
Pop in the CDs in order, boot the machines in order, and start the dd from the upstream machine
in order. You'd want to adapt the Live CD image
to mount the finished disk and set host, network parameters
according to MAC address from a table.
dd: dangerous, dude. (Score:2)
Re:dd: dangerous, dude. (Score:2)
Netrestore (Score:3, Interesting)
We imaged 1500 Powerbooks in 4 days using an Xserve and NetRestore. The image was about 5 GB I believe and we averaged about 20 mins a machine with 25 going at once. There should be enough on the forums to get you started.
Easy, non automated way (Score:4, Informative)
Server:
- OS X 10.3 Server NetBooting 10.3 with Diskless option selected
- A network accessible shared folder.
Client:
Any Mac configured exactly the way you want it.
To make the Master image:
NetBoot your template machine and use Disk Utility to 'Make Image' of the host computers HD - Save image to your shared folder.
NetBoot your target system. Make accessible your disk image that you saved in your shared folder.
Use Disk Utility to format its hard drive.
Use Disk Utility to do a 'Restore' using the image as the 'Source' and the Mac HD as the target.
Wash, rinse, repeat.
Things to consider:
Machine specific components, processor speed differences, etc. Make new images for different processor class machines. (i.e., Dual 1 Gig has much different architecture than a Dual 1.25, but the 1.25 is very similar to the 1.42 (FW800 on both).
Safest bet is to make an image for each config/machine variation.
A 2 gig image takes me about 20 Minutes. Be mindful that system speed and disk configuration will greatly affect performance.
For more speed: RAID 0
For redundancy: RAID 1
For balance: RAID 5
Your network architecture also plays a vital role, especially when attempting simultaneous restores. Most all Macs come with GigE now. If your IT budget can swing it, I would highly recommend picking one up (a GigE switch that is).
Even if you use some of the other software recommendations, hard disk speed, network architecture and superfluous demand on the system will all play a big role the time it takes to complete.
There are many ways to stream line this process, however this is what I need and this is what I do. I am always looking for new ways to automate and make easier the restore process.
Already have Ghosting down to a science on the PC side of things.
----
It's live long and PROSPER, not THRIVE...
non-blocking gige switch (Score:1)
Try to get a good quality one that is non-blocking
you can also put additional ethernet cards in the server, and assign clients to each card (i think)
No multicast way (Score:2, Informative)
Every machine boots from a CD or, the net install boot system, then an application launch that then sycns up with a multicast system. Overall much the same way as ghost. Hmm... maybe a new programming project.
I know of a .... (Score:3, Funny)
Their whole network is BNC longhauls and 10bt to every computer. They thought hubs were "better" cause they were cheaper. They have 1 collision domain...and the network is real easy to "Snoop".
Quite sad....
Re:Keep image LOCAL (Score:2)
Not exactly what you're looking for... (Score:2)
Problem is there's no network install, only local disks. (Hence the subject line...)
Re:Not exactly what you're looking for... (Score:1)
Re:Not exactly what you're looking for... (Score:2)
Sound like you answered your own question... (Score:2)
We think the closest thing to this is ZenWorks, which we have in the longterm plans of implementing when upgrading of our servers are done.
Sounds like you answered your own question.
Of course, ZenWorks ain't free, and it'll require training, and NDS tree rights will introduce political turf fights, and eventually some pointy-headed bean counter will object to the cost, but hey, welcome to life in IT.
It's a Mac... (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.apple.com/server/macosx/netboot.html [apple.com]
Frisbee... (Score:2)
http://www.emulab.net/software.php3 [emulab.net]
Even in whole disk mode, this thing is scorching. I've not seen anything commercial or free that touches it in terms of speed. The whole thing is multithreaded. I use it for restoring PCs on a test bench after regression testing. In fs-aware mode it'll restore a ~5Gb file system in a matter of about 4-5 minutes.
-Peter
You're doing something seriously wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
I manage a lab of 30 machines, and we use NetRestore to wipe them on a weekly basis from a G4 XServe. The switch is only 100 Base-T, so we're bandwidth limited to about 5 or 6 machines at a time. Even so, imaging one machine takes about 10 minutes, and the whole lab is done in under an hour. If the switch had a GigE uplink for the XServe then the whole process would take twenty minutes.
Check out the numerous links that others have posted to macosxlabs.org and asr, and good luck with it.
--Paul
One Link Here Should Help (Score:1, Redundant)
http://www.macosxlabs.org/
No offense to the slashdotters, but you'll probably find this link more useful than any of the posts here. It's chock full-o-goodness with people who make it happen in real-world situations rather than an unruly group of independent pundits.
Hope this helps!
.
Add Apple Remote Desktop to Bombich's NetRestore.. (Score:2)
For fully automated restores, add Apple Remote Desktop to Netrestore in full automation mode. From one machine you select which ones you want to restore and set their startup disk to netboot the NetRestore image and restart the machines. NetRestore will image the machine, set the startup disk back to the hard drive and restart the machine. It can also name the machine if you want. DHCP makes configurations a little easier too.
One thing we've done is partitioned the hard drive into two partitions, a 15-20GB
Only aware of ONE tool that uses IP multicast (Score:2)
http://www.landesk.com/products/product.php?pid=1
Please read before you reply.... (Score:1)
Why do I even waste me time reading Slashdot comments....
Try using Altiris (Score:1)