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Package-based Image Creation And Thin-imaging For Mac
The reddit for Mac Professionals. Please keep all content and discussions professional. Community Resources. ##osx-server on. Useful Tools. Make OS images.
Third-party update retrieval. Manage AutoPkg with a GUI. Mac imaging. OS.pkg installer. User creation.pkg. Reposado GUI. Is there an auto tune application download for mac pro.
Software Update deployment. Manage Munki with a GUI. Munki reporting. Easily do stuff at login/boot. Advanced packaging Tool.
Cache Apple software updates. Package Analyzer. Hey everyone! I'm struggling here with a scenario. I would love to create a custom image to quickly install OS X El Capitan with preinstalled programs on multiple Mac computer (Macbook Pro and Airs) - What is the best way to go about this? Can I create a system image with Disk Utility? Do I have to use AutoDMG?
Attempting to pull and image from a Wyse thin client fails with: “Copy image to USB failed Press Enter key to reboot now.”.
I'm not familiar with Mac deployment so any help would be greatly appreciated. Right now what I'm doing is just going through the initial setup on a new Mac and installing all the things. Surely there is a better, easier way! Help me, Reddit! Right now there isn't a management solution in place. What if a situation ever arose where you needed to deploy something to your fleet quickly?
If I were in your shoes I'd get Munki up and running as a proactive measure. It doesn't take much to set up, and it's not hard to learn. It's also useful with imaging, because you could put a base image and the Munki client on with your imaging tool, and then the machine will just install everything else through Munki. I used this system for a couple years at my current job before they decided to move to Casper. It worked very well and even though I like Casper, I miss the old setup. If your image deployment is far and few between then you may not see dividends getting an elaborate setup in place (i.e. Setting up a netboot server, deploystudio, or Imagr).
To start, go with AutoDMG, as everyone here already noted, and use Blast Image Config to quickly get the.dmg onto machines you need to deploy. There's enough extensibility in BIC to keep you busy if you choose to start playing with pre/post restore scripts or anything else in there. You can also make your.dmg available over the network if so you desire, and restore it using BIC, but a local restore of a vanilla OSX takes merely two minutes (flash to flash). This requirea the least amount of setup before you start seeing tangible results. I use a little bit of Casper Imaging, AutoPkgr (GUI for AutoPkg) and Munki. I've been doing more thin imaging using JAMF + Apple DEP. A computer is enrolled and when it finishes enrolment, it installs packages I've slated for it (Office 2016, Cisco products, printers, etc) over the air.
I then join to domain via scripting and have the user sign in. Upon sign in, the machine auto creates a mobile account and I make them an administrator. Anything else ether need is served up Via Self Service (JAMF supplied app that allows me to deploy software on an as needed basis and gives the user control to install it.).
DeployStudio: Creating a New Master Image Once you have been using DeployStudio for a time, you’ll invariably end up creating a new master image. This is a hot topic this summer, given that Apple will be releasing Mac OS X 10.6 later this year and many people integrating DeployStudio want to make sure that they can manage the solution themselves during the subsequent updates. Provided you have been leveraging all of the best in package based imaging this might be a relatively small file, or if you are using a monolithic image for distribution it might be a fairly large file. Either way, DeployStudio makes it fairly straight forward to create a new master image. To do so, first get your imaging station ready using similar techniques to how you have created your master images (known in DeployStudio as Masters) in the past. Then follow these straight forward instructions.