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Massively Updating to Mac OS X?
Zerocool3001 asks: "I work for a school in California that uses all Macintoshes. All of the machines have Mac OS 9 on them. We would like to upgrade to Ma OS X 10.2 and we have a net install server with disk images ready to install. However, it appears as though net installations of disk images is not possible in Mac OS 9. If you have any way to install a disk image over a large network to about 500-700 computers, we could definitely use the suggestions."
Instead of asking people here on Slashdot...
I'm sure that for these kinds of numbers, in a high-profile installation... -someone- over at Apple would be interested in making things go smoothly for you.
I'd imagine that you could get help directly from Apple - and probably better than anything you'll find here.
Based on your description, NetInstall is out of the question, so really all you can do is ASR. It's a bit trickey to get working correctly the first time, but when it works, it'll do a very fast setup of the machines in question. You'll have to do some digging though, as there several different ways to go about it on both Classic and X machines. Apple.com is probably your first best friend here.
Aside from that, from what I remember, you can do some openfirmware stuff where openfirmware will allow you to remotely boot off of a disk. This way, you could automate most of your install. The problem with all of this of course is the hardware you're using - automating this all means lots of scripting to figure out which drive, save, etc.
Regardless of any of the above, contacting Apple for a more direct contract on the install might be your best bet. Course, if you're cheap, you can always hire some students (i.e. get 3 hours of semester credit or whatever) to help do updates.
But this might be of use to you. Google is your friend. http://www.macos.utah.edu/Documentation/MacOSX_Dep loyment/Specifics_ToolsUsedDeploy.html
The NetInstall process doesn't have anything to do with the OS the machine is running. It's just a netboot that happens to run an installer instead of a complete OS.
The hardware you are running on makes a difference, though. It's best if you've got a B&W G3 or slot-loading imac (or better). These machines support "dynamic" netbooting... they also added the nice feature of just booting the machine by holding the "N" key.
If you have older machines, then you have to be proviging IP Addresses (via DHCP) from the server that's doing the Netboot/Netinstalling.
Firewalls can also come into play here. You have to have the appropriate port for NFS, TFTP, and Bootp open in order to Netboot/Netinstall OS X.
I hope this helped...
NetBoot is possible from OS 9. I run an Xserve (with 10.2 server) and have been able to do it since I got the server. If you read through the NetBoot portion of the OS X Server Admin Guide (found here: http://www.info.apple.com/kbnum/n120174). You should see that you need a specific (newer) version of the Startup Disk control panel. I believe they say that it comes on the server software CDs, but I got it from the latest OS 9 system software of a G4 tower. I would guess that you need to be running OS 9.2.2, but I'm not positive. Most of my troubleshooting CDs are still booting OS 9 and I needed to be able to reboot from them to a server image. It's worked well for me, so far.
1. Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball. 2. Do not eat iPod shuffle.
I have set this up on our small office network (30 Macs; 100Mb switched; xServe) and it works great. I'm a part-time tech person; no terminal.
e store.html
Go here and get NetRestore:
http://www.bombich.com/software/netr
Go here and download the video, NetRestore in Depth:
http://macosxlabs.org/webcasts/index.html
The only thing I can add is that your clients need to be ugraded to OS 9.2.2 to netboot.
With Netboot and NetInstall, coupled with Network Home Directories, I figure I can cut my time spent doing tech work in half. (I'm being optimistic, but still...)
From their site:
I personally use ASR to deploy systems. Setup a base image and roll 'em. More info at http://www.bombich.com/mactips/index.htmlFrom the blurb on the product page, Assimilator won't do, since the drive's fundamental structure and partitions will have to be changed. Nice program, though.
Michael C. Hollinger
Apple has K-12 account reps who would LOVE to get in on helping a school update that many machines.
Try calling the Educational Support # at 1-800-800-2775 (APPL). Usually there are individual K-12 reps for each area or school. See if the folks at Educational Support can get you in contact with that person. Honestly, with this kind of volume, they could probably make it much easier for you, both logistically and financially, if you get what I mean.
Also, might I suggest as a resource:
http://www.apple.com/education/k12/
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
1) make sure netboot is working properly on your server (you can use the default OS 9 image that gets installed with netboot to test) 2)build your image on your most recent machine 3) Use Mike Bombich's Carbon Copy Cloner to make an ASR image (it's in the preferences) and save it to another drive. Then load it onto a sharepoint on your server. 4) Install Mike Bombich's NetRestore onto the server. Use netrestore helper to make an Netboot image that boots to ASR. (configure the settings to use your asr image) 5) Netboot the machines to your netboot image 6) Run ASR (you can automate this) Easy as pie (Although I can't bake :))
Here's hoping you see this message in time, the morning of Tuesday May 20th Apple is hosting an interactive webcast on using Apple Software Restore.