Slashdot Mirror

1. Administration. Macs don't play well with PC networks, even with OS X on them. As we are implelmenting things like Active Directory, hard-drive-based backup of network storage, web caching and filtering, and the like, we're having to jump through hoops to get our Macs to work with these new systems.

From Apple.com:

Active Directory support
Panther also includes enhanced support for Active Directory, so you can more easily integrate Macs into a managed Windows network. Your network administrator can use the same password authentication system that Windows people use, and can mount your network based home directory as a share point from a Windows server, if that's how your network is set up.

2. Administration again. We've implemented RIS of all PC machines that can PXE boot, which is most of the ones on campus. If a machine is acting funky, we just PXE boot and walk away, and two hours later, all of the OS components and applications are restored to their original state -- the hard drive has been wiped clean and redone. Macs just can't do this. Every time a Mac is acting funky, we need to spend several hours of our valuable IT time redoing it and reinstalling apps. We can't afford that.

It requires an OS X Server, but Netrestore lets you hold down the N key while you turn on the machine and it will automatically restore the machine. Even without an OS X server you can put off of the Panther CD and restore the machine from an image hosted on a web server or AFP server. All at no cost.

3. Cost. Macs cost a lot. The machines that are getting delivered tomorrow are Dell Dimension 4600s with 2.8 GHz processors, 512 MB of dual-channel RAM, 80 GB hard drives, and 17" Dell UltraSharp flat panels. We got them for $800 a pop. You just can't compare a $900 eMac to that kind of value.

eMacs are $650 for educational institutions. For $1,056 you can get a Superdrive equipped machine with 512MB of RAM and 160GB HD.

I used to use CC Cloner a lot. That's excellent advice, but I hope you've written a script to do those "ls -l"s. I'm using LaCie drives mostly. We've lately switched to NetRestore for, well, restores; I still use CCC for backups. CCC is in fact vulnerable to Firewire issues, and versions prior to 2.30 had some lack of stability. 2.30 on Panther is pretty stable.

The BIG problem with CCC is the condition in which it leaves the directory structure. I made it a policy to run DiskWarrior on every system I restored. I spot-check when I'm using NetRestore (a very handy program locally or networked), but I haven't seen anything serious with NR but I'll keep looking. There's nothing worse than deploying a system with damage, already on it, that you could have prevented.

That reminds me. There is no Earthly reason for not emptying the caches when you image. It screws things up when you deploy on dissimilar hardware; nothing else is as troublesome moving an image across generations of hardware (G4/G5 for example). There's No Cachet in a Cache.

I've seen the same thing with CCC and FireWire drives, where eventually the process times out and you have to force-quit CCC and start over.

The issue is with the FW drive--the firmware on some works better thatn the firmware on others. For some reason.

Thread for details

The Apple Store computers are set up with two partitions. One is hidden and contains the ASR (Apple Software Restore) image, while the other is the normal boot partition. They're setup to image at some point from their hidden partition. I'm sure they also have a FireWire disk with the image when someone hoses the computer totally. (No, I don't work there, just poked around one day :))

Some info on deploying OS X ASR images: http://www.bombich.com/mactips/asrx-original.html

We use ASR to image the base machines for the labs here at UC Davis, and then deploy the software install sets using Radmind

Don't setup individual accounts! That would be incredibly time consuming. I would definitely have Student and Administrator accounts. You can set the Student preferences in System Preferences - Accounts. You can set limits on what they can do and what programs they can run (Capabilities).

If you have a budget and some time to learn, creating a Disk Image on a Firewire drive would be a great idea. Basically: Get everything working perfectly, make a disk image of the system, store it on the firewire drive and when something goes wrong down the line, just install the disk image. Within a few minutes you'll have your system right back where it was, without having to re-install everything from scratch, which could take hours. Try Carbon Copy Cloner and NetRestore from Bombich Software. Both are free! The firewire drive might put you back $150 but it's well worth it.

Carbon Copy Cloner or good old Disk Utility

As others have mentioned, you can use the System install disk to change your root password (which may be what was done to you). At the first splash screen, look in the menu bar to select the pasword reset utility.

Also, if you'd like to look around, you can boot into single user mode using command-s when booting. once you see the command prompt, just go nuts.

Another option is to boot off of another drive with the OS on it. Target disk mode is very handy for this. you can do it with 2 desktops, or one laptop and one desktop. An external drive is possible. Also, you can find ways to make a bootable OS X CD to work from w/o working from the original drive if you can get to another Mac to build the CD on.

No need for a complete wipe - check out an app called "Delocalizer" - which will remove all the additional language packs without re-installation.

I think the author of that code also posted, or made available the "under-the-hood" code that actually does the "heavy work" - namely, running a recursive find for files with the language extensions, and rm -rf'ing them.

• Developer Tools
• fink, and then:
  • $ fink install nmap;
  • $ fink install osxutils
• Next is Carbon Copy Cloner,
• Transmit or some other ftp file browser.
• Finally, to make it "home", I'll install Windowshade X and Xounds.
• Also will edit my .bash_profile, naturally, and have been known to put a fnorder in the login script.

Carbon Copy Cloner is all you need. It has psync kinda integrated in it. It also has the ability to clone to a disk image (.dmg file).

Move along, nothing to see here.

• Workgroup Manager lets me set user preferences and system policies to control almost every aspect of the client computers;
• Apple Remote Desktop lets me manage all of my machines remotely, even from home over our VPN;
• Carbon Copy Cloner, NetRestore, and NetBoot make imaging & deploying workstations a breeze;
• and Radmind handles disk maintenance and file distribution in the lab.

• Workgroup Manager lets me set user preferences and system policies to control almost every aspect of the client computers;
• Apple Remote Desktop lets me manage all of my machines remotely, even from home over our VPN;
• Carbon Copy Cloner, NetRestore, and NetBoot make imaging & deploying workstations a breeze;
• and Radmind handles disk maintenance and file distribution in the lab.

Veritas makes a client for Backup Exec 9 for Mac OS X (you still need to be running Backup Exec on a Windows or NetWare box). There are also dozens of open source & freeware backup solutions that provide schedulable GUI frontends to command line staples like ditto, psync, and rsync, such as Carbon Copy Cloner and RsyncX.

That sucks. Next time, if you don't already do this, try booting from the iPod before wiping the Tibook. Also, have you tried Carbon Copy Cloner?

Have you looked at Mike Bombich's tips on deployment? He covers NetBoot there. And his "Carbon Copy Cloner" can make a NetBoot image.

Using NetBoot/NetRestore combined with Apple Remote Desktop, I can re-image, reconfigure and reboot any system from my laptop. User home directories live on the Xserve, so I really only have one system to back up. All of this is very convenient :)

Also note that the applications on that site are mainly GUI wrappers for command line apps that Apple provides with every OS X Server system. You could accomplish much of the same with Perl if you were so inclined...

I run a lab with about 50 macs (assorted models, from 350mhz iMacs through 800mhz eMacs, and a few 1ghz G4's) - I spent a good bit of time on a solution, and it's really not as hard as this thread makes it sound.

First, I build one system and set it up *Exactly* the way I want all the others to be. I have some run-once script voodoo to set the IP address of each machine based on its Mac address, and to munge some ByHost user preferences for the built-in guest account. Then, I use Carbon Copy Cloner">Carbon Copy Cloner to create an image of that machine's hard drive.

Once I have an image of the machine, I use NetRestoreNetRestore (by the same guy as CCC) to create a netboot image that will automatically install the master machine's HD image onto each client.

I am fortunate to have a MacOS X Server machine on which to run the NetBoot server - which is independent of the subnet's master DHCP server, I might add - but it is possible to netboot macs from other Unix machines with a bit of patching to dhcpd.

Anyhow, all in all I don't find it any more difficult to netinstall Macs than it is to do the same for Windows machines. Building the master clone image is time consuming and annoying, but it always will be for any platform.

Feel free to email me if you are interested in my machine setup voodoo script. I had to borrow some binaries from OS X Server in order to make it work. It's slowly turning into something useful as I add more functionality to it.

I run a lab with about 50 macs (assorted models, from 350mhz iMacs through 800mhz eMacs, and a few 1ghz G4's) - I spent a good bit of time on a solution, and it's really not as hard as this thread makes it sound.

First, I build one system and set it up *Exactly* the way I want all the others to be. I have some run-once script voodoo to set the IP address of each machine based on its Mac address, and to munge some ByHost user preferences for the built-in guest account. Then, I use Carbon Copy Cloner">Carbon Copy Cloner to create an image of that machine's hard drive.

Once I have an image of the machine, I use NetRestoreNetRestore (by the same guy as CCC) to create a netboot image that will automatically install the master machine's HD image onto each client.

I am fortunate to have a MacOS X Server machine on which to run the NetBoot server - which is independent of the subnet's master DHCP server, I might add - but it is possible to netboot macs from other Unix machines with a bit of patching to dhcpd.

Anyhow, all in all I don't find it any more difficult to netinstall Macs than it is to do the same for Windows machines. Building the master clone image is time consuming and annoying, but it always will be for any platform.

Feel free to email me if you are interested in my machine setup voodoo script. I had to borrow some binaries from OS X Server in order to make it work. It's slowly turning into something useful as I add more functionality to it.

As someone who runs both MacOS X and various Unix variants, I can honestly say that I can install and configure FreeBSD on a PC faster than MacOS X can get through the basic installation...

As someone who runs both MacOS X and various Unix variants, I can honestly say that I can install and configure FreeBSD on a PC faster than MacOS X can get through the basic installation...

No it doesn't. Once a sale is made, it is final. Reread what you just quoted: the sentence you emphasize applies to the service not the sale.

The guy in the article was trying to use the service of reauthorizing his music (after he deleted his authorization keys by reinstalled his computer from scratch) from a credit card he changed to a Canadian billing address (which Apple makes very clear during the sale cannot be used as a billing address for access to iTMS--not in fine print as the author implies).

Had he done any of the following, he wouldn't have any problems:

1. not deleted his authorization key from his computer by reinstalling from scratch;
2. backed up his hard drive with a tool such as Carbon Copy Cloner (this is very easy because a Powerbook can be mounted in target disk mode or you can back up to a bare 3.5" HD via a Drive Dock)
3. not changed his billing address to Canada; or
4. changes his billing information/credit card to one in the United States (having a friend forward mail, for instance).

Right now Apple uses the "technology" of billing address verification to verify compliance. The agreement is worded such that they have the freedom to use another technology whenever you try to use iTMS service (authorize or deauthorize a computer constitutes a service, listening to music sold to you, by my guess does not). They obviously will use this "technology" as long as they are not allowed to sell iTMS music in Canada.

This article sounded too pat to me. It's obvious from the agreement that iTMS is designed to behave the way it did. The writer seems to have gone to great extremes to find a scenario in which he couldn't listen to his music and is the internet equivalent to buying a CD, having it damaged by movers, and then being "shocked" when the music store he bought it from won't send him a new one. Because of this, I checked out the author's homepage: what do you know, it says he's a vice president of MusicDirect.Com (which seems to be a website making money from referrals to Amazon.Com music downloads)--an unfortunate conflict of interest. (I also noticed that he worked for Microsoft, but I believe this to be a red herring: it was their internet division and he left them during the internet boom.)

BTW, I must complement him on a well done homepage! A wiki and blogger: he's a pretty talented guy--talented enough to have a backup of his hard drive and worldly enough to scam a US-based credit card somewhere, no doubt. :-)

This is all really clearly detailed at Apple Software Restore. The idea is to create a bootable disk image with all the software (apps, fonts, etc.) you want to deploy, put it on a file server, and then boot into the target machine with a FireWire disk or CD with Mac OS X on it. This is so you can go into Terminal and use the command-line tool to run 'asr' to install the disk image.

Use NetRestore and NetBoot on your OS X server for rollout, then maintain them with Radmind. NetRestore is much like Apple Software Restore, but better, and Radmind is a replacement for RevRDist or Assimilator, but again, much improved. I've used them all and managing OS X this way is so easy is ridiculous.

Unfortunately, Assimilator won't work for installing Mac OS X as there are hard linked files that Assimilator won't handle properly. Use a combination of Netboot and ASR, or Netboot and Mike Bombich's NetRestore.

--Paul

From their 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. We will find and document solutions to a host of challenges that commonly arise when deploying labs in a higher education environment. The result will be a roadmap for others to use as they plan to roll out Mac OS X at their institutions.

OK, serious misinformation here. Kevin Boyd, University of Michigan, has worked his butt of to work HFS support into rsync. Download it here. Second, as someone else noted, psync is a great utility for backing up Mac OS X -- makes complete bootable backups, does synchronization too. Another great utility is Carbon Copy Cloner -- its a GUI utility for ditto; very simple to use, works with Jaguar, makes a full-bootable backup if so desired. Get it here.

Finally, there is Apple Software Restore. Command line geeks will like the version that ships with Mac OS X Server 10.2. Simple to use, works at the block level, great for mass deployment, works over a network (even over http!), not really appropriate for general backup.

"In a few months I'll grab a new mobo and a CPU and basically breathe life into my PC for $300"

It has been said before, peecees are for people that want to do things to their computers and macs for people who want to do things with theirs.

In a few months, I'll sell my G4/933 for about 75% of the original cost and upgrade to a new tower for about $600 more than that. An hour-long Carbon Copy Cloner session, and I'm back up and running right where I was.

I dunno how much your time is worth to you, for me, it's a no-brainer to spend $600 instead of $300, so I won't have to spend a couple of hours ripping systems apart, getting cut by the case, breathing in dust, and if running Windoze, the extra two days of hair loss getting the drivers set just right. If Linux, who knows how long. It can be a quick switchover, but then again, maybe there's some cool new drivers for the cool new features on that cool new motherboard and don'tcha know, I've just got to hunt 'em down and rebuild the kernel to use them.

This is great, and even enjoyable when what I want to do is tinker with my system. I've been there done that so much I just want to get a faster system to write and test code on, and do it without slicing up my knuckles and without spending a bundle of cash. The first Mac was a big pile of money, (and so have some of the many "first" peecees, BTW), upgrading, IMO is on par.