Slashdot Mirror


Large-Scale Mac Deployment?

UncleRage writes "I've been asked to research and ultimately recommend a deployment procedure for Macs across a rather large network. I'm not a stranger to OS X; however, the last time I worked on deployment NetRestore was still king of the mountain. Considering the current options, what methodologies do admins adhere to? Given the current selection of tools available, what would you recommend when planning, prototyping, and rolling out a robust, modular deployment scenario? For the record, I'm not asking for a spoon-fed solution; I'm more interested in a discussion concerning the current tools and what may (or may not) have worked for you. There are a lot of options available for modular system deployment... what are your opinions?"

90 of 460 comments (clear)

  1. make sure you have lots of lube by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    that is a whole lot of gay to be rolling out

    1. Re:make sure you have lots of lube by udippel · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Fine.
      Not a native English speaker, and yet a regular Slashdot reader, an OT question: Why could this be considered funny?

  2. Large scale Apple managed LAN? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Is there even such a thing in this world? Folks like to disparage Windows, but it really is the only OS built for very large enterprises. Linux solutions don't really compare to Windows solutions - there, I said it...

    1. Re:Large scale Apple managed LAN? by norkakn · · Score: 5, Insightful

      radmind ftw

    2. Re:Large scale Apple managed LAN? by Brian+Gordon · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I preemptively beg mods not to bury this comment. We all know that Linux is great on hackers' workstations and on servers and in computing clusters, but not so great as a desktop system for average users.

      Well large managed networks is two miles away in the distance on the scale of things Linux is awesome at. Active Directory, Exchange, Terminal Services... Windows really does have a very impressive offering in this area, while Linux stays behind the scenes and rarely faces the user.

    3. Re:Large scale Apple managed LAN? by thatkid_2002 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Wrong! Novell Zenworks is on Linux too - so why can't you have a heterogeneous large scale Linux and Windows rollout? There is Zenworks for Mac but none of our customers (though there is quite a few Macs) use it. If you are going to roll out Novell stuff you may as well do Novell Groupwise while you are at it.

      Novell solutions pwn Microsoft, sorry to say.

    4. Re:Large scale Apple managed LAN? by DoofusOfDeath · · Score: 5, Funny

      Is there even such a thing in this world? Folks like to disparage Windows, but it really is the only OS built for very large enterprises.

      Agreed. It's the only OS for seriously large botnets.

    5. Re:Large scale Apple managed LAN? by Logic+Bomb · · Score: 4, Informative

      There are many huge Mac deployments: universities, school districts with 1-to-1 laptop programs where every student gets a laptop, Google (thousands of Macs), the Fountainbleau hotel in Miami, and more. Apple gear isn't always used to manage everything: most of these sites are probably using Active Directory or some UNIX-based LDAP service for account management. But there are plenty of large Mac deployments out there.

    6. Re:Large scale Apple managed LAN? by Daniel+Dvorkin · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Is there even such a thing in this world?

      Yes. Next question?

      Seriously, it's obvious from the story that there is, indeed, "such a thing in this world." Windows users love to accuse Mac and Linux users of fanaticism, but honestly, there's nothing more fanatical than a Windows drone who can say something like "[Windows] really is the only OS built for very large enterprises" and believe it.

      --
      The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
    7. Re:Large scale Apple managed LAN? by genner · · Score: 3, Insightful

      LDAP, thunderbird w/ lightning plugin (or openexchange, citadel or similar), XDMCP.. Updates? Your own local ubuntu/debian mirror w/ custom packages, etc. Lots of equivalents.

      ....and still no replacement for active directory.
      This is really the only practical reason why windows is still on top.

    8. Re:Large scale Apple managed LAN? by amirulbahr · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Active Directory

      You can't be serious on this one. LDAP + Kerberos can easily take on that role plus some.

      Exchange

      Email is easy enough to offer but shared address books and calendaring may give Exchange the edge. No harm in deploying Exchange on the back-end and using Evolution or Thunderbird or web based Exchange on the front-end.

      Terminal Services

      This is the most outrageous of your claims. Linux, Solaris, *BSD all come up trumps in this. You've got X11, NX, VNC, and the most advanced thin client solution at the moment, Sun Ray.

    9. Re:Large scale Apple managed LAN? by confused+one · · Score: 3, Insightful

      OS X is a certified Unix platform. Why is it hard to believe it's capable of being used as a large enterprise OS.

    10. Re:Large scale Apple managed LAN? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      sorry I am not a winblows fanboi but if you actually believe Mac's are built for very large enterprises it is you taking fanatism to a new level. Linux Sure, but Mac's are a hodge podge of half arsed solutions that can be bound together with twine to work in an enterprise, as someone that supports them on a daily basis in an enterprise I can say without any doubt Mac's are NOT built with the enterprise in mind.

    11. Re:Large scale Apple managed LAN? by Frosty+Piss · · Score: 2, Interesting

      We all know that Linux is great on hackers' workstations and on servers and in computing clusters, but not so great as a desktop system for average users.

      We do? Well, we're not really talking about Linux here, we're talking about Apple, which is a whole different ball game. But as to your Linux comments, people repeat these anecdotes so many times, they are taken as fact even though there is really not much to back them up. Recent Ubuntu and Red Hat offerings (and to a lessor extent SuSE and Mandriva) prove this tired anecdote to be essentially no longer true. Just because the Über Geeks use Debian, *BSD, or roll their own doesn't mean that's a true representation of the current state of consumer and enterprise desktop Linux.

      --
      If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
    12. Re:Large scale Apple managed LAN? by itzdandy · · Score: 2, Informative

      I would argue this.

      Linux may be less prefered for a stand alone desktop mainly because of the windows apps that consumers like to clutter their computers up with. Linux excels in large deployment, standardized desktops.

      Simply put, linux workstations are easy to setup against LDAP with NFS home directories. You can tighten the desktops up to limit apps. Use Terminal Server and RDP for necessary windows apps. You can run specific applications on centralized servers and access them via remote X sessions on the local lan or over the internet and tunnel that through compressed ssh tunnels. Got a really heavy app that only a 10 users need? buy one high end workstation instead of 10. LDAP carries usernames and permissions across the network. DNS keeps every server easy to maintain because a DNS change lets you quickly relocate services.

      Consider that linux is easily installed via network, can be installed in a reliable software raid environment, and is very very stable when users dont have root access to the box to install software and tweak the system.

      You can run your workstations of flash keys. you can net-boot them if you like. LTSP and you can use old hardware and net-boot them.

      You can load balance remote apps easily and LDAP handles authentication and NFS handles preferences so your users dont even care about the server they are using. to them, blender.domain.local is all they know, even though that is just the load balancer.

      The shortcomings of open source are really that making everything fit a windows environment is difficult because it is a moving target and is actively evading OSS.

    13. Re:Large scale Apple managed LAN? by rhavenn · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Egh, Active Directory is just LDAP with Kerberos and some proprietary crap thrown on top to make in hard to interoperate with other OS's. The group policy tree is just a centralized registry management system. So, no you're wrong. It isn't as plug and play, but a LDAP setup with single sign on via kerberos and a puppet system to manage the config files (Linux does not use a registry) thrown together with a custom package repository (the SUS equivalent) and you're good to go.

      However, where Microsoft wins out is that that isn't easy to roll out. MS has the marketing and the 5 clicks that lets a "manager / phb" install MS server and call themselves admins. The bottom 2/3rds of the Microsoft install base, at the server level, mostly don't know what they're doing and really don't understand the underlying tech of what AD is. Once you start rolling out large Fortune 500 style install bases you really do need to know your stuff and most admins at this level probably could do a Linux / UNIX / OS X setup of the same scale with a little work and reading. However, the end users / managers don't want this since they've been rather well indoctrinated by the MS marketing team.

      Personally, I like to sum this up by stating that with MS it's very easy to turn the key and go from 0-40MPH, but to make it all the way to 60MPH it gets difficult and the hood of your car is welded shut. The Linux's and BSD's of the world make you learn how the engine works first, but once you've got it figured out you still make it to 60MPH before MS does.

    14. Re:Large scale Apple managed LAN? by firstnevyn · · Score: 5, Informative

      With puppet of course.

    15. Re:Large scale Apple managed LAN? by h4rr4r · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You don't, you use the many available tools to do what you want to all the machines via scripts. This is the same thing you do when you realize that group policy only exists for a couple things and everything else you are on your own.

    16. Re:Large scale Apple managed LAN? by anagama · · Score: 2, Informative

      Email is easy enough to offer but shared address books and calendaring may give Exchange the edge.

      Darwin Calendar Server. Open Source, free, runs on Linux. I thought I read in the mailing list that address book sharing is coming, though I can't be positive on that. Still, makes a great calendar server and it works with Thunderbird, though Thunderbird is not an awesome calendar client. Some howtos for installation: http://dcswiki.org/

      --
      What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
    17. Re:Large scale Apple managed LAN? by Magic5Ball · · Score: 5, Funny

      Among my experiences (mostly historic):
      -Some shims/extensions installed to compensate for hardware issues were unconditionally loaded, even on hardware that didn't need/couldn't boot with them. That made reusing disk images on slightly different hardware revisions... fun.
      -Wake on LAN should do... stuff. Consistently.
      -I've autodiscovered a shared printer which I'll share with everybody. I've autodiscovered a shared printer which I'll share with everybody. I've autodiscovered a shared printer which I'll share with everybody...
      -What's that? The mounted ASIP resource disappeared for a few seconds and now everyone's trying to reconnect? At once? And their workstations are beachballed until the share comes back, even though they have no open resources on it?
      -Restoring resource forks from backup always works!
      -What do you mean by "the QuickTime update broke the AppleScript methods for a completely unrelated subsystem"?
      -I've autodiscovered the same printer share which I'll share with everybody...
      -ls -lr on a folder with a few hundred files in subfolders ... get coffee as much of the btree is traversed
      -I've connected to this resource before, so I'll make a new alias for it with a subtilely different name
      -What do you mean you've deleted stuff to the network trash and now it's locked?
      -I've autodiscovered the same printer share which I'll share with everybody...

      --
      There are 1.1... kinds of people.
    18. Re:Large scale Apple managed LAN? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      There is a HUGE difference between a large scale deployment of individual machines that may participate at some level in a domain environment and a large scale deployment of machines that are COMPLETELY managed, scanned, updated, patched, installed, backed up, and configured from a single place. I'm talking about a hardware guy setting a brand new machine and doing nothing but plugging into the network and walking away. The next morning, the new secretary or student has a fully usable and installed machine with all of the apps at a very specific version and customizations and functions they will need to perform their work up to and including the background, the startup music, the power settings, and the icons on the desktop depending on what department they are in. Yes, anyone can preinstall a Word processor on a machine but can you have the correct custom toolbars and have it integrated into your companies document management and purchasing systems and the required tools for deploying to the companies portal system? Take that example 20 times for all of your software. For large businesses, a SINGLE common interface that can be deployed and and updated seemlessly in the background saves huge amounts of money in time, training, and productivity. If a tech has to make a single trip to more than two peoples computers to install or update a piece of software, you are not doing things in the most efficient manner. We have over 2000 desktops in 5 countries and they are completely managed by three people in a single office. The amount of people we have maintaining them is based on the amount of updates and software we mange, not the amount of desktops deployed. Those three people can mange 10 or 10000 desktops with just about the same amount of work.

    19. Re:Large scale Apple managed LAN? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      Mod parent up. Radmind is the only way to deploy a managed Mac OS environment.

    20. Re:Large scale Apple managed LAN? by ilmdba · · Score: 4, Insightful

      please... X11, NX, VNC and Sun Ray all suck ass compared to RDP. i use them all on a daily basis, and RDP is far and away the best of them all. authentication, remote devices (USB, printing), sound, mapped drives, etc. etc. none of these other solutions even touch on any of those features. not to mention, the performance of RDP smokes all of those others completely out of the water.

    21. Re:Large scale Apple managed LAN? by Culture20 · · Score: 2, Informative

      You don't, you use the many available tools to do what you want to all the machines via scripts. This is the same thing you do when you realize that group policy only exists for a couple things and everything else you are on your own.

      I admin both 'doze and 'nix, and although what you say about AD is true, you're not completely correct. AD is so handy to create GPOs with batch files to apply to machines automagically when they are thrown in an OU. Sure, you can always add computer names/IPs to a config file for automated scripts in cfengine, but AD is easy for subordinates to deal with.

    22. Re:Large scale Apple managed LAN? by Z80xxc! · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Novell solutions pwn Microsoft, sorry to say.

      Actually, no they don't. Not by a longshot. The school district I attend (with over 100 schools) uses ZenWorks, NDS, GroupWise, etc. Yes, ZenWorks is extremely powerful, and Novell has good integration. Yes, you can do a lot of cool stuff with it. Novell also happens to make incredibly slow software. Our district can't afford new computers on a standard 5-year cycle (or chooses to blow their money on computers twice as expensive as they need to be yet still with crap specs, but I digress), so many of our machines are 8 yearold Celerons and P4's with 256 or at best 512 MB of RAM. With the blank/minimal XP image on them, they run pretty decently. Not super fast, but quite usable. As soon as the Novell components get added onto the systems, boot times go up astronomically. It often takes more than 60 seconds for the login prompt to appear after the user presses Ctrl+Alt+Del, whereas it happens immediately with the standard windows login. The ZenWorks application launcher also takes a very long time to start up, and the systems are generally far slower once they've bee Novell'd. Novell may have superior designs, but at least with Active Directory the computer actually works.

    23. Re:Large scale Apple managed LAN? by MeNeXT · · Score: 2, Insightful

      This is so far of the mark it can only come from a windows centric operation. What happens when the business' interest lies in a non microsoft solution? How does MS AD handle that?

      If it's so simple to deploy then why are so many large companies so hesitant to upgrade?

      I hear this a lot but have not seen it work with a mixed environment yet. Windows does not play well with others. If you care to lock yourself down to windows fine with me. I manage over 15 companies and the only common software they have is in the office. Unique business solutions require unique management software and AD is very limited!

      --
      DRM? No thanks, I'll just get it somewhere else...
    24. Re:Large scale Apple managed LAN? by Antique+Geekmeister · · Score: 3, Insightful

      No, there are many historical reasons Microsoft has its leadership position. It has, in fact, been convicted for many of them.

      Active Directory is useful: its management interfaces are very useful for modest size environments. Scaling it down to small shops that can't spare dedicated, expensively licensed servers or scaling it up to large environments that require subtler control and redundancy, however, is extremely painful. Its underlying technologies are all more manageable with a more intelligent database behind it and a superior auto-configuration setup. These components are:

      DNS
      DHCP
      Kerberos (authentication)
      LDAP (user account and machine resource management)

      That's basically it. And given its lack of sanity checking of its own configurations, the difficulty of scripting its operations, and its mishandling of the addition or re-configuration of new resources, I don't recommend it for large environments.

    25. Re:Large scale Apple managed LAN? by TrueKonrads · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Isn't this kind of the point? If You can spend 2 hours and have a domain deployment with all the features You need done by a average paid admin, why spend two weeks by a linux guru? IT on a basic level is not something that adds immense value so why spend a lot on it?
      P.S. I love hacking just as the next guy and linux on enteprise is my pet peevee.

      --
      Lone Gunmen crew.
    26. Re:Large scale Apple managed LAN? by Arainach · · Score: 2, Funny

      To continue your analogy, when your driver has a heart attack (or you get sick of him and get rid of him), Linux will crash into the next brick wall since you can't find anyone who knows your custom system, while it's very easy to find someone to keep your Windows running at 60mph.

    27. Re:Large scale Apple managed LAN? by Cyberax · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "Egh, Active Directory is just LDAP with Kerberos and some proprietary crap thrown on top to make in hard to interoperate with other OS's."

      Yep, and Linux is just a couple of C files, written by underpaid engineers in their spare time.

      ActiveDirectory is much more than 'just LDAP with Kerberos'. It has nice management tools and integrates with almost all Microsoft applications. And most important: it actually works just fine. And you can easily interoperate with AD because using simple LDAP.

      I've tried to make a replacement for AD in Linux network. Even after spending a week I was not completely successful. For example, I still have no idea how to make offline logins using cached credentials. Or how to integrate Kerberos authentication and IPSec.

    28. Re:Large scale Apple managed LAN? by drsmithy · · Score: 2, Insightful

      However, where Microsoft wins out is that that isn't easy to roll out.

      That's got to be a strong contender for "laughably inaccurate understatement of the year", right there.

      The Linux's and BSD's of the world make you learn how the engine works first, but once you've got it figured out you still make it to 60MPH before MS does.

      Bollocks. Even an entry level, nothing-but-the-MCSE Windows admin could setup an simple AD environment in a day or so. On the other hand, a highly qualified Linux admin is going to be messing around for a week (or more) to hack something equivalent together using LDAP, Kerberos, cfengine, et al, unless they're specialists in those tools.

      This is before even getting into the ongoing maintainability of those systems. One is a standard cookie cutter deployment, easily understood by any remotely qualified Windows Admin. The other is a customised collection of puzzle pieces, held together with duct tape and string, that even "expert" level Linux admins will take days to fully understand.

    29. Re:Large scale Apple managed LAN? by bertok · · Score: 3, Informative

      Not even that. OpenLDAP supports user-defined schemas. Active Directory doesn't. You have to go out and buy something if you don't like the stock set. Kerberos and one or more LDAP servers come standard with all the major Linux distros.

      100% wrong, AD does allow schema customizations, using a simple command-line tool. Many applications do exactly this, not just Microsoft software. Developers steer clear of it, because a forest-wide schema change terrifies most PHBs, but it's actually rather trivial if you need it. Microsoft does request that if you sell boxed software that makes schema extensions, then you should register your schema IDs with them to prevent conflicts, but that's not enforced or anything.

      Oh look.. it's even documented for you:
      LDIF Scripts
      http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms677268%28VS.85%29.aspx

      What I especially like about AD is that once you've extended your schema (say by adding a few attributes to the User class), you can then write a management console add-in that adds an extra tab to the User property dialog box. Nifty.

    30. Re:Large scale Apple managed LAN? by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Isn't this kind of the point? If You can spend 2 hours and have a domain deployment with all the features You need done by a average paid admin, why spend two weeks by a linux guru?

      I think the previous poster was quite clear it adds a lot of flexibility going forward, especially for large scale deployments. And it's not like you have to personally hire an on staff Linux guru. There are dozens of IT services companies happy to set this up for you and even manage it if you don't want to hire an admin. You don't have to pay any license fees going forward and any modifications you want done to the actual system can be done by multiple contract companies you can make bid on it, instead of just MS, if they feel like it.

      I happen to be working right now with a large organization that does have a nicely crafted LDAP setup with single sign-on, across the organization, portable preferences, calendaring, and pretty much everything you get from AD. I'm working with some commercial, some, custom, and some modified commercial tools and all of them work flawlessly with the system because the system is completely under the control of the organization. In my experience that never happens with AD, unless you limit your tools to the subset of commercial offerings that already do it.

      IT on a basic level is not something that adds immense value so why spend a lot on it?

      IT can have cascading and unpredictable costs going forward, especially when you lock yourself into a single vendor and make all your solutions going forward brittle. What new devices and services do you need to offer in 5 years? What about in 10? Will you need to pay to upgrade? Will there be cost effective devices and service that can't work with AD? Suppose this time next year Google Wave has proven itself to be vastly superior to traditional e-mail and messaging and individuals have begun adopting it left and right bypassing your e-mail and some of those users are people with more clout than IT has. It would be immensely useful to implement Wave servers in your organization for interaction with others and security reasons. Will it work with your AD smoothly or will you be forced to use a Web client for single sign on? Can you integrate the calendaring with Google Wave for online meetings? Are you going to be waiting for MS to think about implementing interoperability or do you have the ability to take bids from a dozen different firms to make it happen?

      Apply the above scenario to every device and technology to come out and think about how flexible your solutions are.

    31. Re:Large scale Apple managed LAN? by RulerOf · · Score: 2, Informative

      Yes, yes, I know.

      I was referring to the functionality you see in RDP, where any client edition of the OS can connect to any box running Terminal Services (XP Pro and all Server Eds.) without licensing more crap.

      I may have misstated the licensing terms, but I firmly believe they're bullshit enough that such doesn't matter.

      --
      Boot Windows, Linux, and ESX over the network for free.
  3. DeployStudio or LanREV by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    I have had great success out of both DeployStudio (http://deploystudio.com/) and LanREV (http://www.lanrev.com) in K-12 schools with 200+ machines.

    1. Re:DeployStudio or LanREV by scottdmontreal · · Score: 3, Informative

      DeployStudio looks fantastic with it's multicasting capabilities, but the System Image Utility in Leopard Server is just so trusty I have a hard time looking at anything else. http://www.deploystudio.com/Home.html You don't hear much about Leopard Server but it is by far the most promising aspect of the platform. It is the key to any large scale OSX network. I am a one man shop for 400 users. I'm sure that with a staff of three It could scale way up.

    2. Re:DeployStudio or LanREV by Architect_sasyr · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I have a DeployStudio installation that supports 1132 laptops, iMac's and G5's, with only one IT member (who, to be fair, outsources any really difficult questions to me). Maintaining that is easy as hell - if a user complains too much about a problem, he tells them to netboot - they can choose which building they are etc. or he will VNC for them. Either way, 1 person scales well with DeployStudio - me, I'm an Apple Certified Systems Administrator, with a strong focus on Deployment, and I will push DeployStudio every time.

      --
      Me failed English...
      FreeBSD over Linux. If my comments seem odd, this may explain...
  4. Planning by NoYob · · Score: 2, Funny
    You really don't need to do anything. See, with Macs being so user friendly, you just have the truck back up with skids of computers, plop them on folks' desks, and BINGO! everything is ready to go!

    Man, I'd update your resume because they won't need you anymore. Or, insist that some MS products are still around because of ... of...email ...no...um...well, that's your problem.

    --
    It's NOT me! It's the meds! I'm on 1000mg of Fukitol.
  5. Suggested reading: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Check out the following:

    http://www.macenterprise.org/
    http://www.deploystudio.com/Home.html
    http://rsug.itd.umich.edu/software/radmind/

  6. Re:Macs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Guess what? It would be you, not the Macs. I'd have fired you for wasting the time needed to tear a display apart instead of sending it to the manufacturer to be repaired.

  7. Have you looked at the features.. by mewsenews · · Score: 3, Informative

    .. of OS X server? It doesn't require client access licenses like Windows server versions do, and many of the services seem tailored to providing the best administration possible for an OS X network. I don't have any personal experience, but that's the first place I'd look if I had to admin an entirely OS X network.

    1. Re:Have you looked at the features.. by molarmass192 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Spoken like someone who's obviously never seen, much less used, OS X Server. OS X server is built around standards based enterprise tools like Apache, LDAP, CalDAV, and IMAP. You know, ISP grade stuff like this:
      http://www.apple.com/server/macosx/specs.html

      What standards is your Windows Server / gaming platform, based on?

      --

      Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws-Plato
    2. Re:Have you looked at the features.. by GigsVT · · Score: 5, Insightful

      We have an OS X server.

      It really does suck.

      It's kind of like a crippled BSD server with weird management utilities and a lot of buggy modified utilities.

      You might as well just use a normal Linux server, since all the same daemons are available, and much easier to manage.

      --
      I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
    3. Re:Have you looked at the features.. by raddan · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The only problem with Mac OS X Server (and this is speaking from 10.3-10.4 experience; maybe 10.6 server is better) is that if Apple's grand vision for your network doesn't fit your own vision, then Mac OS X Server is next to useless. The problem is that Apple has preconfigured a number of built-in services, and changing them causes major headaches.

      For instance, in 10.4, any change to the GUI would overwrite your /etc/smb.conf. What's worse is that Apple often runs old versions of this software. If, say, you want to go out and run the latest Samba, nothing is stopping you, but expect parts of Apple's system to break. Sure, I admit, lots of people go this route and have many workarounds for Apple's stuff, but for us, we figured: if we're going to do all this work to circumvent Apple's packaged stuff, why not just run Linux? So that's what we run on our backend now. We even run Netatalk, which has to be the simplest daemon I've ever configured-- it basically worked with PAM+winbind right out of the box, and so we're able to authenticate our AFP clients against AD, too.

      If you're a very small shop, and you want a simple drop-in fileserver, Mac OS X will probably work for you. If you want a simple Open Directory, and don't have an existing directory system, Mac OS X will probably work for you. But get any more complex than that and you might as well use something else.

    4. Re:Have you looked at the features.. by falcon5768 · · Score: 2, Informative

      Give me a break 3-4 grand for a server is not at all that bad. Its actually middle of the road for a decent server of that type.

      --

      "Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."

    5. Re:Have you looked at the features.. by thegreatemu · · Score: 3, Informative

      I second that one wholeheartedly. The GUI admin, which is billed as this "any average Joe can run a network" (which is how I got stuck with it with no training) is completely inadequate if you're doing anything completely non-trivial, but thinks it know better than you and clobbers any edits you make to the config files.

      Also, the DHCP and NAT fail tremendously. I told the server to serve DHCP and provide NAT services to the subnet so that my cluster would have one forward facing IP address. This worked great until someone unplugged the LAN cable, leaving the WAN as the only living connection. Since I had NAT on, OSX Server decided I must really want it, and just made a mistake for what side I wanted it on. So it happily started serving up DHCP requests on the wider network, at least until OIT hunted it down and screamed at me.

      it just works my ass

    6. Re:Have you looked at the features.. by raddan · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Sure, and by that measure Windows Server 2003 and Linux 2.4 experience is totally worthless, too.

      Apple's stuff may have gotten more pleasant to use, but come on, there haven't been any earth-shaking changes going on from a sysadmin's perspective. Besides, 10.4 Server came out in April of 2005. That's 4 years ago. I think you'll still find it widely deployed in Apple environments.

    7. Re:Have you looked at the features.. by torkus · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Sorry but no.

      Based on your anecdotal example...bla bla bla. Buy you readily say you're buying sub-par equipment. So i'm not sure how you can compare "good" equipment. If i bought a $300 clearance PC and compared it to a $800 enterprise-class PC i'm sure i'd see more failures in the cheapy one.

      Moving on...to the smaller end of 'large' business - 2500 users and ~4000 computers in my enterprise. Similarly configured Macs cost us about twice what a PC does. Apple doesn't give on hardware unless you're buying them by the truck load and even then it's not nearly as much as other large suppliers.

      Go negotiate pricing with 7-figure yearly spending and Dell, HP, etc. will give a LOT more than Apple. Yes, Macs are pretty but we're talking about enterprise. Pretty takes a back seat.

      --
      You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.
    8. Re:Have you looked at the features.. by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Similarly configured Macs cost us about twice what a PC does.

      The last actual study I read on this, Macs cost about 20% more than the average PC on the market. That put them right in line with Sony and several other reputable computer manufacturers. Apple systems also rated best in the industry for hardware failure rates both DOA and within the first 2 years and had the best rating for support solutions to both hardware and software problems. That pretty much justifies placing them in the premium hardware category don't you think?

      When you say Macs sot more than PC's you're simply wrong. Mac's cost about the same as good PCs. They are better than and cost more than crappy PCs which are a lot more likely do die on you. If you buy a PC with the same level of reliability and quality components as a Mac you'll spend about the same. On the other hand, when you buy a Mac you will probably spend more money than when you buy a comparable PC. I know you're scratching your head at this point.

      The problem with buying Macs isn't that they cost too much for what you get. The problem is they have fewer models than the combination of all reputable PC makers, so you're less likely to be able to get exactly what you want so you often end up buying something that exceeds the requirements. The end result is a buyer spending more, but it's due to lack of selection not overpricing. I wish people on both ends of this stupid argument would actually look up the numbers and comprehend the situation, so we could stop having this discussion over and over again.

    9. Re:Have you looked at the features.. by Sandbags · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Does price matter in enterprise, where the hard cost of the machine is maybe 10% of it's 3-4 year cost in IT labor, software, upgrades, and downtime?

      Fact is, and NOONE argues this, the PC simply costs 2-3 times the amount of time investment anually, plus requires additional software and agent licenses not required on the mac side (and no, I DO count AV for both Mac and PC, I'm refereing to image software, central management agents, and extras like PDF writers, etc that all come free with a Mac).

      Even if the Mac was 3 times the cost, $500 to $1500, at $50 a hour (low for internal IT costs, all inclusive of salary, training, tools, desk cost, space for the emplyee, etc, industry norm is considderend $70-100 per hour for helpdesk staff costs), it would only take a 20 hour differnce in IT investment, even if all other costs were the same software and upgrade wise (the Mac makes out better there too), for the Mac to be cheaper than the PC. This also doesn't count resale value, or tax incentives, which favor the Mac as well.

      --
      There is no contest in life for which the unprepared have the advantage.
  8. Options by schmidt349 · · Score: 4, Informative

    You have two choices in general on the Mac side:

    -- UNIX-y utilities, usually on the command line and a bit crufty in places, but free and nicely configurable
    -- Mac-type utilities with marvelous interfaces that will probably set you back a nice chunk of change

    When I was in the business, we used Carbon Copy Cloner, but g4u, Remote Desktop 3, or just plain old rsync are all pretty good bets depending on what type of imaging you're planning to do. CCC actually has one foot in both of the two camps I just described.

    Of course, I even remember the crusty old days of Assimilator.

  9. Re:Macs by NoYob · · Score: 3, Funny

    ....fucking Apple Cinema Display

    Damn! Is there a video? I tried googling "apple cinema display fucking" and "apple cinema display porn" and nothing.

    So, what was it fucking? The DVD drive? or the USB port?

    --
    It's NOT me! It's the meds! I'm on 1000mg of Fukitol.
  10. Waste of energy by MouseR · · Score: 2, Informative

    If you post on slashdot a question on the best way to deploy lots of Macs, all you'll get is trollish comments from pre-pubs.

    Really. It's the car equivalent on asking how to adjust the stock Caliber SRT4 wastegates on a Honda Civic SI site.

    For real answers, check out System X. The hardware FAQ and history links will provide lots of useful info.

  11. Easy Steps by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    For initial deployment, Deploy Studio: http://www.deploystudio.com/

    For authentication and settings management, use OpenDirectory.

    For ongoing control and user support, use Remote Desktop (from Apple).

    For a more advanced option, try Radmind to keep the Macs in sync: http://rsug.itd.umich.edu/software/radmind/

  12. Virginia Tech by TitusC3v5 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I don't know anything about their deployment procedure, but here at Virginia Tech the Math Emporium has over 500 macs set up for student access. The courses I've had there have been boring, but the actual setup of the place is pretty neat.

    --
    And the masses cried out, "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0!"
  13. Re:Macs by Brian+Gordon · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Taking it apart yourself is worse than paying somebody else $400/hr to take it apart for you?

  14. JAMF Casper by cwgmpls · · Score: 4, Informative

    Check out the Mac management software from JAMF software. It pretty much covers it all, from package management to image deployment to remote desktop to inventory. Used in many mac-based school districts and Universities.

  15. We have a 300 Mac exclusive network by Tibor+the+Hun · · Score: 4, Interesting

    First we build and test a good image on a machine for a couple of weeks.
    Then we either use that image,if it was correct the first time, or build a new one from it if it required touching up.
    We use Apple's free Disk Utility which comes free with all macs.

    We then get about 10 - 15 firewire drives and copy that image on them. (You have to make sure the drives are bootable, you can actually deploy that same image onto the drive itself.)
    Then we line up 10-15 machines and use again the Disk Utility to image them.
    Depending on the size of the image, just about the time you have the next 10-15 unboxed and set up (very easy to do since they're all all-in-ones), the first batch is ready.
    Works for us, but then again, our schedule is flexible and we can afford a couple of days of leisurely imaging.

    Oh, yeah, and if you do have an image you can also work with Apple, they'll preload it on for you.

    --
    If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
  16. Need more info.. by engele · · Score: 4, Informative

    Here is an excellent resource (at least last time I checked and it has been awhile, they used to be called macosxlabs.org). http://www.macenterprise.org/ As far as tools, the built in tools are very good. A third party tool that can be very useful for bootable drive images is Carbon Copy Cloner. When you say large, do you mean hundreds or thousands, or less? It will definitely change things for you. I think that you will be surprised by both the ease of the transition, and the things that should be easy that are not. Really I don't know how we can help you unless you have specific areas where you are interested in learning solutions (and I don't say that to be a jerk, I'll try to answer questions where I can). How many servers? Directory Server? File Sharing? Exchange Server/POP/IMAP? Calendaring? Centralized home directories? Budget per user? Of course there are cool things that cost money and are not really needed, and hard things that are cheap but work well once set up etc. I would help more, but I don't know where to start... take a look at the link above, and ask questions as you get a better idea of he scope

  17. Net Boot Based Installation and Monitoring by Zerocool3001 · · Score: 3, Informative

    I like you, developed deployment for a mac based network (600 or so macs) back when command line ASR and netrestore were the best options. However, we also upgraded our deployment methods as Apple incorporated some of the technologies we used (cloning and automatic install options) into their server software. Today that particular piece of software is very well polished and does the job extremely well. The last time we did an installation (a few years ago) we used custom netboot images with automatic install options for different types of computers (lab, classroom, etc.) based on mac address. At the time we used a third party unix package manager or OS X called Radmind, but it proved to be more trouble than it was worth. However, Apple Remote desktop's package management and monitoring work very well and lets your do most of the upgrade install tasks you need to. In the end, the only per-machine work was setting up the machine to boot from the network by default.

    Also, if you have the bandwidth, you can centralize your OS installs as server based images that are never installed on the thin clients. If you get it to work, it makes upgrades and deployment very easy.

    If you want to discuss some of the problems we faced and our solutions, please feel free to contact me.

    --
    Science will save us. The question is, will it destroy us first?
  18. Re:Macs by countertrolling · · Score: 4, Funny

    400 dollars an hour?! What are you using? Lawyers? How does that work?

    1) Monitor breaks
    2) Sue Apple
    3) Free monitor?

    --
    For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
  19. radmind by norkakn · · Score: 4, Informative

    I used to run a network with hundreds of apples with radmind. We installed the initial images with NetRestore (multicast for the larger influxes), and upon reboot, the computers would download their radmind certificate from LDAP and install all of the software that it needed.

    It takes more up front time to set up and configure radmind, but it works wonderfully for almost anything you want to do.

    1. Re:radmind by limako · · Score: 2, Informative

      A previous poster argued that you have to choose between unix-ey freeware and pricey, pointy-clicky commercial software, but radmind actually bridges that gap nicely. It is a free set of unix command-line utilites with several GUI applications that can bind it together on the client and server sides -- if you like that sort of thing. In my implementation, we use perl scripts to actually do most of the heavy lifting. Moreover, it's relatively to give end users more-or-less control over the rest of the system: you want a lab computer? Radmind can do that. You want a user's workstation? Radmind can do that too.

      Radmind is effectively a tripwire: it builds transcripts about what has changed on the system and can either capture those changes as a package or apply changes to restore (or setup) a system to a known state.

      The only downside of radmind is that to use it effectively, you really need in-depth knowledge about the MacOS. In order to build transcripts, you need to know which of the changed things are meaningful and which are noise. You need to understand how packages have the potential to create dependencies and conflict with one another -- and to make sure the packages get applied in the right order.

  20. DeployStudio by howlatthemoon · · Score: 2, Informative

    We use DeployStudio, a freeware project http://www.deploystudio.com/ . Support for DS is pretty from the community, or you can buy training, but if you want to go with a vendor product JAMF Casper suite makes a great product, that we did not think was outrageously expensive.

  21. OS X Server + method of your choice by bbk · · Score: 4, Informative

    Apple has a robust remote installation suite with OS X Server, which is darn cheap compared to most other commercial offerings.

    10.6 includes a first party version of NetRestore (full system image deployment, similar to Ghost or Flash Archive on Solaris), but most people deploying across a large number of systems should roll their own images with packaged based tools like DeployStudio or InstaDMG:

    http://www.deploystudio.com/
    http://code.google.com/p/instadmg/

    Some other good sites for finding info:
      http://www.afp548.com/
      http://www.macenterprise.org/

  22. try serverfault by gbrandt · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Try asking this on serverfault.com. Lots of advice can be found there.

  23. Radmind by profplump · · Score: 4, Informative

    It's been mentioned a couple of times, but mostly with -1 scores, so it's easy to miss: Radmind. It's a very powerful deployment tool with a totally transparent mechanism so you can tweak it to do *exactly* what you want in terms of mucking with files on the disk. I've seen people complain about it being hard to use, but I thought it was pretty straightforward -- install an app, run the change detector, tweak as desired (if at all), build an app image, deploy.

    http://rsug.itd.umich.edu/software/radmind/

  24. Re:Macs by azav · · Score: 3, Informative

    Stupid post.

    2 would never happen and would cost WAY more than 400 bucks in time alone.

    Get Applecare and it's covered for 3 years. Ship it back to Apple while they fix it. That's what we do.

    --
    - Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
  25. Why ask on /.? Plenty of info elsewhere... by Logic+Bomb · · Score: 3, Informative

    Why on earth is this being asked on Slashdot? Head to afp548.com and macenterprise.org (particularly its mailing list). You'll find info on InstaDMG, DeployStudio, even Radmind.

    1. Re:Why ask on /.? Plenty of info elsewhere... by Toe,+The · · Score: 3, Informative

      The above are good resources, but also check out the OS X Server list. It is a good, geeky community of people actively building and working on OS X Server networks.

  26. So... by Kyn · · Score: 2, Funny

    This is a Big Mac deployment? Sounds like a job for my tummy!

  27. Apple Software Restore + Radmind + ARD by raddan · · Score: 4, Informative

    Apple Software Restore, which comes "in the box". We set up a base machine, populate the /System/Library/User Templates/English.lproj/ and then make a disk image to our fileserver using ASR. Then, boot new machines in Target Disk Mode and deploy the image using your workstation.

    We could probably come up with something clever using a boot partition, but this works fine for us. If you want to get fine-grained, have a look at Radmind but keep in mind that Adobe apps will thwart your every attempt to manage them at that level.

    All of the above are Free/free. We handle patching using Apple Remote Desktop (not free, but well worth the money). You can also configure your machines to authenticate against an Active Directory (like we do); if you're willing to modify your schema, you can even manage your installation from your MMC snap-ins like you can with Windows boxen.

  28. Open Directory and Remote Desktop by lymond01 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Open Directory
    By centralizing information about users and network resources, directory services provide the infrastructure required for managing users, groups, and computers on your network. Directory services can benefit organizations with as few as 10 people and are essential for enterprise networks that have thousands of users. Deploying a directory server helps reduce administrative costs, improve security, and provide users with a more productive computing experience.

    Remote Desktop
    Apple Remote Desktop is the best way to manage the Mac computers on your network. Distribute software, provide real-time online help to end users, create detailed software and hardware reports, and automate routine management tasks -- all without leaving your desk. Featuring Automator actions, Remote Spotlight search, and a new Dashboard widget*, Apple Remote Desktop 3 makes your job easier than ever.

    * You'll notice Open Directory has no Dashboard widget. It's because it isn't uniquely Apple and therefore isn't polished to a blinding shine.

  29. from experience by v1 · · Score: 4, Informative

    You're likely to get some laptops in addition to desktops. Get yourself a large room, a dozen or more firewire cables, power strips together. Before the machines arrive, use a macbook pro or macbook (a laptop) to develop your base image. Install all software on it that is going to be on most of the machines. Test thoroughly. Be sure all your remote access is tested. (ARD/SSH)

    Use netrestore to create the base image. When the computers arrive, copy the base image to a group of laptops, with netrestore app. The number varies depending on how many computers you are going to be imaging, the size of your base image, and how much help you have. 8-12 is typical if only one person is going to be restoring.

    First thing you should do with machines out of the box is label them, have labels made up in advance. Then set them all up imaging over firewire, just get an assembly line going. You CAN do netrestore over the network, but it's been my experience it's less reliable. (machines randomly fail to restore, sometimes entire groups fail at an annoying 99% etc) Firewire is usually faster anyway since your fileserver or switch is very unlikely to be able to keep up with imaging a dozen at once. FW800 imaging is an amazing thing.

    Once machines are imaged, there should be a folder of scripts sitting on each machine's local admin acct, one for each group of machines. The script will prompt for computer name and run. When run it will rename the computer and delete all the apps that should not be on that particular image. This can also be done by running the script remotely over apple remote desktop. If you don't have ARD, *get it now*. It will save you incredible amounts of time. Using this removal script method adds only a few minutes of time per image but you're doing them in parallel so its negligible, and saves you the major headache of managing a half dozen different base images.

    As long as you made the image on a laptop, it should have full hardware support for the camera etc. Different images are required for PPC, but fortunately that's not a headache you have to worry about. (I did, PAIN)

    Boot camp adds a level of complexity, requiring you to partition the hard drives before restoring to them, and then using something like Ghost or Acronis. One person can image between 40-80 machines in 8 hrs depending on how things go. Helps to have grunts to do the minor things like unpacking and delivery to stations. Find some carts so you can move machines several at a time. Inform the cleaning staff that you're going to have a mountain of packing material to dispose of. Keep 1 box for every 20 machines in case you need to box them up to send to a repair shop down the road.

    If you insist on using netrestore over the network, be sure you have multicast enabled on the switches. It doesn't like crossing subnets but can be made to work.

    --
    I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
    1. Re:from experience by Kaedrin · · Score: 2, Informative

      For Mac Deployment, I script the disk partitioning with the terminal version of diskutil, making the Windows partition the exact same size on all machines and have diskutil mark it as MS-DOS. I then use Bombich's OS-X compilation of NTFS-Progs v1 to capture and deploy both Windows 7 and Vista images to the Mac's while OS-X is in use. Students using the computers at the time don't even realize it's happening. NTFS-Progs v2 requires Darwin Ports; I don't believe anyone has made a truly native build of v2.

      It's doesn't have multicast, but you can re-deploy Windows while students are using OS-X during a class. For me, students only may screw up a Windows push if they reboot a machine while I'm doing it. Then I start over. I can also do it all while netbooted SSH/ARD the commands for imaging to the machine. Never have to directly visit them.

      NTFS-Progs is also open source.

      Using my method though, you do have to use "dd" to capture and deploy the Windows boot sector located on what is my /dev/disk0 while the computer is either NetBooted or booted from a firewire drive. I also make my "MS-DOS" partition disk0s2 on a GPT disk while OS-X uses disk0s3. It's more important that the Windows partition be identical on all machines this way than the OS-X partition, so it's just easier to plan on it being the first available partition. The side effect is that if anyone launches bootcamp in OS-X as an administrator and tells it to get rid of the Windows partition, it actually will immediately get rid of the OS-X partition even if your booted from it. Doesn't affect me though, as I strip Bootcamp off my OS-X deployment image. Very few people could launch it even if I didn't.

      The terminal version of diskutil I believe is in 10.4.7 and above. Though maybe it was released with 10.4.8.

  30. you know... by buddyglass · · Score: 2, Informative

    If your installation is big enough, you could probably get some good advice from...an Apple technical sales rep.

  31. Re:Macs by NiceGeek · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "Ever replace a backlight in a fucking Apple Cinema Display? That's 3 layers (and a thousand assorted screws and layers of tape)"

    Sounds like replacing a backlight in every LCD monitor that has ever existed.

  32. Re:Macs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Rule 35

    Oh, the fail.

  33. Bombich Software by SammyIAm · · Score: 3, Informative

    I worked at a school district for some time with a significant Mac deployment. We used Mike Bombich's software extensively, and especially for deployment, his NetBoot utility.

    It does take a little bit of configuration on the server-side to start, but it looks like some other posters have already linked to tutorials for setting that up. MB has a utility to create a net-bootable-image that can used to image that machine with your choice of disk images (we had different images for different architectures, and different software packages), or can be automated to pick an image automatically.

    His NetBoot software also has the ability to run a shell script to complete configuration settings that may need to be done on a per-machine basis (setting the computer network name for example).

    For running updates, and modifying settings after the initial imaging, Apple's remote desktop is actually very useful. Although the feature set is limited, it DOES allow for the execution of shell commands from the Remote Desktop interface, which makes upgrading or changing settings on a large number of machines fairly easy.

  34. Re:Macs by PC+and+Sony+Fanboy · · Score: 2, Informative

    Ship it back to Apple while they deny that it's a manufacturing defect, but agree to repair it out of the goodness of their heart.

    That's what the rest of the world does.

  35. Re:Macs by DurendalMac · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The hardware is more reliable than most OEMs unless you got burned by iMac G5s with bad caps, but that wasn't really Apple's fault. A lot of OEMs got hit by those damned caps.

    You should have just mailed in the damn Cinema Display. Service providers (at least non-Apple owned providers) can't replace anything on them but the power brick these days. Just mail it in and let the repair depot monkeys figure it out. I would never want to replace an LCD backlight (which isn't exactly a user-accessible part on ANY display) if it could ever be helped.

  36. Radmind by fitterhappier · · Score: 4, Informative

    I managed a deployment of roughly 800 Macs across the campus of a large university using Radmind. I've also managed the campus Linux, Solaris and OpenBSD kerberos servers, web servers and file servers with the same software. Radmind's learning curve is a little steeper at first, but it's one of the most flexible deployment options out there once you get the hang of it.

    Radmind's not really a competitor with tools like NetRestore. When used correctly, NetRestore is great for total reimaging of deployed hardware: nothing beats a block-copy installation for speed. Where NetRestore falls down is when dealing with deployment entropy. After imaging, the machine is in an unknown state ("post-image"), and the only way to be sure all machines are in the same state is to blow away the entire disk and reimage, usually at a cost of gigabytes of bandwidth per machine.

    This is where Radmind excels. It's basically a tripwire with software deployment and roll back, all based on the differences between what should be installed and what's actually on the disk. The core utility, fsdiff, looks at all files and directories designated as managed by the administrator and generates a list of differences. You can capture those changes as a loadset and upload them to the Radmind server for deployment to other machines, or you can undo any changes detected by fsdiff and restore the client to a known good state.

    The great thing about this method of management is that there's minimal bandwidth used. If fsdiff detects no changes on the filesystem, there's no reason to download anything: your system is in a known good state. On the other hand, it makes deploying Apple's system and security updates pretty damn easy. Grab the updater from Apple's website, install, and run the Radmind tools to capture the changes. Store the changes on the server, add the new loadset to your machines' profile (command file), and let your clients pull down the changes.

    The Radmind community is very helpful. Most questions to the mailing list (hosted on SF.net, Google groups mirror here) are answered very quickly, and people are eager to share details about local setups and scripting solutions. A typical setup for a Radmind-managed Mac OS X client usually involves a few possible methods for initiating updates, most of which involve iHook as the UI:

    1. Check for updates on Radmind server during logout, update client if found.
    2. Run a nightly tripwire regardless of updates from server.
    3. Run a Radmind update during boot if a special flag file is found on the disk.

    Since we relied on students to help run our labs, we also deployed a special, unprivileged local user account, whom the students could log in as. This also triggered a Radmind update. And of course you can trigger updates over ssh (which works well in combination with something like pdsh).

    We combined Radmind with NetBoot for rapid, consistent deployments. Once the hardware was in place and on the network, we netbooted, used ASR to install a minimum and relatively recent system, and let Radmind bring everything up to date, including per-host license files and location specific software.

    Radmind's not perfect. It manages at the file level. If you want something to manage, say, config files on a line-by-line basis, Radmind isn't going to fit the bill (yet). Generally speaking, though, Radmind manages Mac OS X with ease. Once you've got Radmind managing your Macs, you'll find you have a lot of extra time to do interesting things instead of troubleshooting problems brought on by stale deployments.

    The Radmind wiki is a decent place to start looking. Good luck.

  37. Re:Macs by TyIzaeL · · Score: 2, Informative

    Rule 35: If no porn is found at the moment, it will be made.

    Source

  38. Re:Virtualization? by scottdmontreal · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Yes.

  39. Re:Macs by Mista2 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    2007 Shuttle PC, dead after one year (just out of warantee)
    Custom PC tower, 5 years, finally fails to make it past post last week.
    2006 Mac Mini - still rocking on.

    Most of our corporate machines are towers or standard desktops, internals never upgraded since purchase. A fleet of 2009 minis would be fine for these, and iMacs for reception (or senior managers).

    Savings: no AV software, easier deployment of apps and policies, dont require MS Active directory or client CALs to manage them - however, not knowing month to month what hardware is going to come available from Apple would suck. Windows apps could be easily delivered using citrix or teminal server for those that need it.
    Ever tried to manage 100 notebooks and backup personal data? Howabout encryption software - finally available with bitlocker if you get Vista Pro or premium - but then system folders encrypted too, a pain to manage. I liek just the encrypted home folders - which can also be mounted from an OS X server - and replicated for laptops.
    Also how about common accessories like power adapters for 100 laptops and a single OS image that will work for everything?

    If you can break the MS monopoly then there are savings to be made up to a certain scale.
    However I will admit managing more than 1000 of these puppies could be challenging and I havent seen much that would help except maybe Zenworks from Novell - but then eDirectory is not cheap, but again savings from requiring fewer people to manage everything and fewer servers required.

    For a bulk deployment I'd also look at splitting home off from the boot drive, and have a spare boot image with minimum required apps on every Mac, and script an RSync to keep it fresh from a single image.

  40. Re:Macs by elfprince13 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    A new PowerBook hmm? It's clear you're well informed on the subject of Apple computers, given that a "new" PowerBook has to be at LEAST 3 years old at this point.

  41. Mass Mac Deployment for Dummies by admiralex · · Score: 3, Informative

    I do this for the federal government, after coming from a university environment where I grew up with the Mac from the bad ol' days of the late 90s through Apple's phoneix-like rise from those ashes into the titan it is now. Truth be told, not much has changed.

    For mass deployments, I'm about to look into Casper, but NOTHING I've seen or heard about beats netboot/netrestore -- and mind you, I live and breathe Mac. I use PCs to manage Remedy tickets, and that's it. The ability to create a master image, upload it to a server, restart a machine with the n key pressed and have it image itself was and is nothing short of magical, and it's the deployment solution I'm moving toward for the portion of the Treasury Department network I control (if I die, money will cease to be printed). Unless Casper can top that, netinstall + n is still my deployment solution of choice, and one that the folks where I used to work are still trying to replicate three years later. There's nothing faster or more foolproof.

    Prototyping is just as easy. I deal with everything from banknote designers (pull out a bill. Isn't it pretty? My designers drew all that stuff on their Macs) to executive management, and though they use their machines differently, they all have the same baseline needs -- a rock solid configuration that's hardened to IT Security's exacting (if evolving) standards, and Office to handle collaboration. My base image is a hardened installation of Leopard with fully-patched Office. That's standard across all machines. This base image is what I run in regular user mode on my personal production machine so I will know firsthand exactly what the user experiences from day to day. I customize the default user environment on the standard image to suit _my_ tastes and allow the users to tweak and refine that environment as they see fit. I learned years ago that this is the best approach for standardizing a user's desktop because I know how to work around the various quirks of OS X that can become annoying after using it for an extended period of time, and they usually haven't been on Macs long enough to have figured these things out. The more experienced of my newest users typically bristle at this since to a person they always think their approach/way of configuring the Finder/desktop is THE way to have their machines work, but I usually don't hear a peep from them after a week or two of working in my environment. The biggest compliment to me is when I cease to get trouble tickets from my bitchiest users because they find that I've already anticipated and addressed their most obvious complaints in the standard image.

    On top of the standard image, I install applications specific to the machine's role. The designers, for instance, get Adobe CS 4 and additional design-focused applications such as Quark and a font manager. My video people get Final Cut Studio. My engravers get the same package as the designers. My method of choice for deploying to these disparate groups lately has been to install the specialized applications on the standard image and create secondary images applicable to specific groups. Banknote design machines, for example, have their own special image and the video production machines have an image all their own. This simplifies things mightily because all I have to know when I want to deploy a new workstation (or repair a broken one) is where it's going. Oh, this is a replacement banknote machine? Put the banknote image on it. Copy the _user folder_ -- and nothing else -- from the old machine, create an account on the new machine, point it at the old user folder, and voila. Completely new hardware, and the user has no idea anything's changed. I've upgraded users from Tiger-running G5s to Leopard-running 8 core Mac Pros, and the only difference they noticed was the machine was "a lot faster." And the Apple menu's a different color. That's the power of Mac OS X.

    Security, as I'm sure you well know, is not an issue on the Mac, but given the sensitivity of what my users do, I

  42. OS-X Deployment Without a disk image. (Radmind) by Kaedrin · · Score: 2, Informative

    So here you go. Far too much conceptual information about a process I suspect almost no one here knows beyond the few that already mentioned it. Enjoy.

    So the best I can do is telling you how I do it for about 400 Mac's, and the tools I use. I basically use two OS-X 10.6 servers that host NetBoot images and Radmind, and then Apple Remote Desktop (ARD) on a client to control events occurring on all the clients be they booted locally or NetBooted.

    I'll also be up front, if you are not computer savvy, and don't want to be, do not touch Radmind with the idea of using it to deploy anything beyond software to an already existing deployment. Stick with an image based package. If however you are computer savvy, can get around a command line, and need to support an unlimited number of *nix machines, especially in a lab, Radmind is an incredibly strong tool.

    I solely use Radmind for both OS deployment and software updates because it's a delta based package and tripwire system which you don't need to rebuild over time unless an administrator makes horrible mistakes without a backup. If I really needed an image, I would have Radmind generate that build for me and then use 10.5/10.6's NetBoot/NetInstall creation tool on the results.

    I do not use NetRestore, NetInstall, or any other deployment tools for OS-X. It is a waste of time to constantly rebuild and maintain various images over time vs a delta based deployment system, especially when I'm the only one supporting the image. It may take *slightly* longer to deploy than a sector based image, but the amount of effort placed on the administrator in the long term significantly decreases. Sure, learning Radmind might take a whole lot of time and effort, but the more random and variously configured machines you need to support are, the more attractive it becomes to spend time learning how to use it beyond a software package deployment tool. Heck, the right people behind it could probably support thousands of *nix servers without much of any effort.

    You can also reverse the use of Radmind over time to maintain just software packages by making a negative transcript targeting just ".". If you do that, and make sure clients don't see the overall OS level packages, you can update software only without updating the OS at its core.

    So radmind has a set of tools that come with it, and I'm only going to mention the most critical of them. One scans a computer for changes. Two other apps takes that scan and either uses it to upload data to a server, or to use the knowledge on the server to 'cause' changes to the client. Another downloads the command lists from the server, and those command lists have knowledge of all the "package" transcripts that actually define almost every file on the computer. Using them all in combination in scripts by someone that knows how to manipulate the results are what can make Radmind powerful.

    Up front there are negatives and positives about Radmind:
    Negatives:

    It can be very complicated.

    A lot of the documentation is poor, though it's better today than when I started using it.

    Simple mistakes in a transcript can suddenly prevent the client-side app from functioning. Discovering why can sometimes be very difficult. (especially if it's a nested command file level issue that only gives you "Input/Output error" when lapply crashes.)

    It only supports network compression, which frankly is worthless. No file-based compression during capture.

    Almost any error in a delta file will break process of updating/deploying machines. It really requires you have someone learn it in and out.

    The default method of deploying images to massive numbers of machines that may need different builds is unwieldy. There are ways around some of this.

    The GUI console in OS-X once you have several hundred transcripts is annoying to use, and creating and using subfolders for transcripts or command files will seriously screw your deployment life up.

    It has no GUI on anything except OS

  43. Re:Macs by vux984 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    By your own admission it *WAS* a hidden cost to Macs. Now that you *CAN* find them 3rd party, you're whining about the past.

    Its still a hidden cost, its just less now.

    Plus the whole selling argument Apple makes for getting a Mac is to avoid stupid technical hassles. This is a stupid technical hassle that wastes tons of time -- that's a cost too. I can't count how often Mac users have to go scurrying about because they forgot the adapter in their car or office or at home. Nor can I count how often I've huddled around some dimwits 13" or 15" screen to watch a presentation in a conference room with a projector sitting right next to it.

  44. Re:Macs by vux984 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    So you're convinced that hanging on to connectors created 10 or more years ago on laptops is a good engineering design call?

    They are a good design call until more people than not don't NEED it.

    Here's some light reading on the topic for ya.

    I have nothing against displayport. I have nothing against the progress it represents. You seem to think I somehow dislike displayport or progress in general. That couldn't be further from the truth. All 3 monitors on my desk are hooked up via DVI. And my newest one supports both displayport and hdmi as well, so it should be forward compatible with my next video card too.

    But it ALSO has a VGA port, which has proven useful on many occasions. And its good to have that legacy option, because despite the fact that its 'obsolete' its still MASSIVELY IN USE. And that's on a stationery device that never goes anywhere, where having an adapter or two isn't actually inconvenient, nor apt to be left behind or misplaced. Virtually all monitors and projectors you encounter right now take VGA and will have a VGA cable hanging off them ready to plug into your laptop... so yes that is the most sensible port to put on the laptop.

    If they want to add displayport too, that's awesome.

    Oh yeah, that article ends with three or four advertisements for places that sell cables... cheaper than Apple's.

    Glad to see you are coming around to my original argument then. That Apple grossly overcharges for them.