Great topic.

Right now, we’re using a StartupItem because it was already written and vetted a while ago. One feature we’re using that I think a generic, standard method should have available is rudimentary installation ordering options. We use a pipe-separated text file with a list of packages.

I’ll post the full list of what we’re doing at first boot on Monday when I get back to the office. However, regarding ARD I [i]think[/i] the way a customized ARD client installer is written you can’t install it on a non-boot volume and expect the customizations (rights, accounts creation, etc) to work because of the way the postflight/kicker script works. I think it calls the local copy of the ARD kicker and sets the options on the startup disk.

I’d love to be proved wrong.

– Patrick

Two things that I’m using StartupItems for:

– binding to our OD
– setting the timezone, and ntp server

I tried to do it with a launch daemon, but it didn’t work because of the whole dependency issue. Right now, I’m tackling the ARD issue. I was using a “no local user” system, and only using a admin from OD. It was working great, but our support people didn’t like not having a local admin in case things didn’t work. So, I’m using the createUser script that was posed here. It’s working well, but I’m now running up agains the ARD issue again. I’ll be interested to see what you all find works best.

We are doing the following for our NetBoot build (although I stole pteeter’s “kick” variable):

[code]kick=”/System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/Resources/kickstart”

#Disable system sleep, display sleep, and hard drive spindown
/usr/bin/pmset -a sleep 0 displaysleep 0 disksleep 0

#Enable ARD and set options
#The periods should be replaced with whatever you want your privileges to be
$kick -activate -configure -clientopts …
$kick -configure -users ‘admin’ -access -on -privs …
$kick -restart -agent -menu

#Rename the startup disk to “Leopard NetBoot”
diskutil rename / “Leopard NetBoot”[/code]

And we’re doing the following in our standard build (the certificate is being installed by one of the packages):

[code]#Enable AppleTalk
firstEthernet=`/usr/sbin/networksetup -listallnetworkservices | /usr/bin/grep -m 1 Ethernet`
/usr/sbin/networksetup -setappletalk “$firstEthernet” on

#Enable and configure Apple Remote Desktop
#Like the above, a few different options but the same idea

#Setup NTP server and enable network time
/usr/sbin/systemsetup -setnetworktimeserver our.ntp.server.com
/usr/sbin/systemsetup -setusingnetworktime on

#Add Company’s Root CA
/usr/bin/security add-trusted-cert -d -r trustRoot -k “/Library/Keychains/System.keychain” /private/tmp/ourInternalCA.pem

#Rename the startup disk to “Macintosh HD”
/usr/sbin/diskutil rename / “Macintosh HD”

#Setting the time zone
#We have code that determines the second octet of the IP to figure out where the machine is booting up.
#It’s 95% true that the machine stays where it’s built
centralTime=”America/Chicago”
/usr/sbin/systemsetup -settimezone $centralTime[/code]

Great presentation the other day Josh 😉

I am setting up the Launchdeamon pointed to a script and then package it and put it in my package train. Which works but seems over complicated? Isn’t there just a way to package a bash script? I have tried many attempts and my pea brain isn’t grasping it. Wouldn’t that take a couple steps out of this process.

Just trying to simplify a process.

Thanks for the help

Kevin

> ARD: I use a Custom ARD Installer made from ARD and it works perfectly.
> Since the kickstart script is made to work on non-startup volumes (there
> is a -targetdisk option in kickstart that makes this all work), I’m
> curious why you it won’t “just work” for some of you? Are you doing
> something unusual that can’t be applied?

I’m not doing anything unusual, but could you confirm this is the right syntax to set ARD rights/configuration to a non-boot disk? I just pulled it out of an Apple mailing list (never considered it could be set on a non-boot disk):

[code]sudo /System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/Resources/kickstart -targetdisk / -configure -clientopts -setdirlogins -dirlogins yes -setdirgroups -dirgroups ard_admin,ard_interact,ard_manage,ard_reports[/code]

> Enable Root: I’m not sure, but I thought it just created a hash for the
> fixed GUID of the root account (FFFFEEEE-DDDD-CCCC-BBBB-AAAA00000000),
> so it could in theory be done at creation time. that way you’re not
> sticking the password in a script. But if there’s more than that I’d
> like to know.

My root enabling is just dropping the hash and editing the admin dslocal group on the target disk to append root onto the “users” array (which is what Directory Utility does).

> TimeZone/ntp I actually just drop the /etc/ntp.conf file and alter
> /etc/hostconfig to enable ntp. creating a symlink from
> /usr/share/zoneinfo/XX/XXXX to /etc/localtime does it for timezone. i.e.
> ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/US/Eastern “$3/etc/localtime” in a postflight
> script does the job.

Ours needs to be done at boot time since our standard build is made in one time zone and restored onto machines in multiple time zones.

– Patrick

[quote]If you make a package that only has a postflight script in it you can apply that with the installer…[/quote]

Dumb question how do I go about doing this? I have tried Many different approaches. I just want on bash script that has a few lines in it applied on my instadmg image.

Thanks for the help.

Kevin

[QUOTE][u]Quote by: cooperkevind[/u][p][quote]If you make a package that only has a postflight script in it you can apply that with the installer…[/quote]

Dumb question how do I go about doing this? I have tried Many different approaches. I just want on bash script that has a few lines in it applied on my instadmg image.

Thanks for the help.

Kevin [/p][/QUOTE]

What I would do is use the terminal to touch a file called foo. Then in my pkg, I would install the foo file to /dev/null and fun the postflight script. I think that would work.

Can anyone tell me if this would work. Honestly I haven’t tried it yet.