Failed deployment of image

[bw38]

So I spent about 2-3 months working on and learning InstaDMG. I continually tested the images I had and the packages I was developing. Tried to keep up to date with the latest release of InstaDMG as well. Everything seemed to be working fine by the end of December. Come the new year, I realized I made a silly mistake and left out the package of iLife 09, everything else worked fine (Final Cut Studio 3, Adobe CS5, Acrobat 9, and Office 2011). Should have been simple to included it, right? Well I decided to also download the latest InstaDMG release. I’m not sure where or how this happened but somewhere along the way my packages for Adobe CS5 and Final Cut Studio 3 stopped working correctly. I attempted multiple times to re-create the packages based on the info and guides available here, but no cigar.

Distiller (part of Adobe Acrobat) was giving me issues opening up (I managed to fix this).
Final Cut Studio 3 was losing its licensing.
Then Adobe CS5 started losing its licensing.
Finally Adobe Illustrator stopped working.

So this is where I am today. I attempted to deploy this image to 35 iMacs (2 different silver models from the past two years), and none of them work as they should. I’m not sure why or how this happened. During those few months, I kept testing in two ways. One by creating a separate partition on my Mac which would constantly be re-imaged to see how the image behaved. Then I tested by getting a separate Mac and re-imaging from my external HDD and over the network as well. Each time I ran into a problem I was able to fix the package and the image would come out clean. But somehow things changed.

This has been the most stressful week ever. A nightmare in fact. What should have been quite an accomplishment has been a complete failure. And I don’t have any idea why.

I just wanted to share this story and get some feedback here. Has anyone has had any issues with the latest release of InstaDMG and the two products I mentioned?

[dead2sin]

I use the latest SVN for InstaDMG.

For CS5, I built my packages using Composer. Installed CS5 products, then used the presets for Composer to generate the package. This has worked for me using the latest SVN, but I’ve never had licensing just break like that.

FCS3, I’ve never seen that happen before either. I don’t know what to say about that. Did you build it on the same machine you had been, with the same packages and same installer disc (Same everything except InstaDMG being updated?).

Nate

[bw38]

Yup, I continued to test on the same machine, same packages, same installer disc. The only real difference was the updated InstaDMG. I’ve been using Composer 8 too. I tried building Adobe CS5 with the latest diffs and also did a package with before/after modified snapshots. Same with FCS3. It’s just rather strange how this worked for so long but suddenly stopped after the new year.

I’m resorting to a final solution of creating a package of the DMG for Adobe CS5 and just manually installing it when the computer is booted up so that I can get this up and running by this week.

Have you recently created an image with both products using the latest SVN for InstaDMG?

[dead2sin]

I rebuilt 3 images in the past 2 days, all 3 had CS5. I suppose the latest SVN I have is actually from last week, but nothing has changed since Jan 2.

I’ll double check CS5 when I get to work tomorrow. Something has to have changed on your setup besides InstaDMG…

Nate

[bw38]

I’m grasping at anything that may have changed recently:

The only thing I can think of that I changed in that time is that I started building images on my external HDD via Firewire rather than the internal HDD on the iMac. I found that it started building the images quicker (internal HDD would take 4 hrs, on the external it would take maybe 2.5 to 3hrs with FCS3 and Adobe CS5).

Here’s another thing that I started doing about early last month (but this was during the time the image was working): I would take the files/folders in the in the user folder and add them to the corresponding User Template folder. However I would change the Owner/Group to root/wheel (the other permissions stayed the same). But like I said this worked for me so I don’t know if this is bad or not.

Also another thing that may have changed: on my iMac I setup a partition with OS X Server. I didn’t run InstaDMG within OS X Server, but the partition was there. So when I was running InstaDMG there were about 3 partitions on the internal HDD plus the external HDD connected. But then again I always build my images with at least 2 partitions and the external HDD connected.

I also another thing that is strange: the last image I created I was able to deploy via FireWire to another Mac (same model) as mine. And it worked fine. All CS5 and FCS3 applications responded without issue. However when I tried to deploy it over the network it failed.

Other info:
I’m using Deploy Studio to deploy the image. I’m using multicast. Initially I noticed packets failing to send. But I did one unicast session which seemed to go through without any failures (I can only vouch up to where there was 20-30 minutes left in the deployment). I say that because I left for a bit and the computer had restarted so I was unable to see any logs for it. I understand any packet that fails to send could be from anywhere on the disk image, but on my last deployment I only saw 6 packets which weren’t sent, its nuts if it broke the entire Adobe CS5 suite because of that. Unfortunately, I don’t have much to work with since I’m on a 10/100Mb switch, but I set the max speed to 6MB/s on the server.

What I’m going to do is deploy the last image again on Thursday via FireWire to one computer to see if it deploys properly.

I don’t really have anyone else to brain storm or troubleshoot at work with on this project. Only people to vent with. Any other things you can give me to bounce off ideas and get me thinking is much appreciated.

[dead2sin]

If it always works via firewire and never works via DeployStudio, then I’d say its not the image itself.

Multicast will resend packets that are dropped, so that shouldn’t have caused the issue, BUT, I would try imaging just one, non-multicast and see if it works or not. I don’t use multicast because I have not had the time to tune it properly for our network. I end up just pushing 26 unicast images out and waiting 4 hours 🙂

Image via FireWire and via Unicast using deploystudio and see what happens.

Nate

[dead2sin]

I can confirm my Composer CS5 package works with my InstaDMG image that I just built yesterday.

Nate

[bw38]

[QUOTE][u]Quote by: dead2sin[/u][p]If it always works via firewire and never works via DeployStudio, then I’d say its not the image itself.

Multicast will resend packets that are dropped, so that shouldn’t have caused the issue, BUT, I would try imaging just one, non-multicast and see if it works or not. I don’t use multicast because I have not had the time to tune it properly for our network. I end up just pushing 26 unicast images out and waiting 4 hours 🙂

Image via FireWire and via Unicast using deploystudio and see what happens.

Nate[/p][/QUOTE]
How big is the image you’re sending out? And what kind of speed does your switch allow?

My image is about 58GB and I’m sending it out over a 10/100MB switch. Such an image would take quite some time. At what kind of speeds does it send the image out when you deploy it?

I have about 35 Macs to re-image. If I try to NetBoot more than 10 at a time, I see a significant decrease in speed.

[dead2sin]

My image is right around 60gb compressed. I’m on gig though, so I guess I can get away with it.

So does it work properly when you image just one via unicast?

Nate

[bw38]

[QUOTE][u]Quote by: dead2sin[/u][p]My image is right around 60gb compressed. I’m on gig though, so I guess I can get away with it.

So does it work properly when you image just one via unicast?

Nate[/p][/QUOTE]
I wasn’t able to test it today. Snow day at work. But tomorrow I will.

[bw38]

So I was able to test the image via FireWire and there is something up with the image for sure. It’s very weird because when I tested the image the first time it was created it worked fine, but when I tried to deploy it after that, it simply stopped working with these two packages. I’m going to have to investigate this further but in the mean time I’m going to have to improvise and get things done this week, even if it means a lot more manual work than I anticipated.

[dead2sin]

So it works over firewire, but it doesn’t work when being deploying via DeployStudio even unicast? If it works deploying over firewire, I have a hard time believing there is a problem with the image. If it was an image problem, it shouldn’t work being applied with *any* method.

Nate

[bw38]

I was under the wrong impression. It’s been such a stressful week I don’t even know what’s what anymore. It worked the first time for sure via FireWire (I remember this much because I had a big grin and yelled “yes” next to my co-worker when I saw it work), but when I tied to deploy via multicast it wouldn’t work. Then I figured to try it again via FireWire, and again it wouldn’t work. It looks like my packages are somehow messed up. I must be doing something different and I don’t know what it is. In any case, I resorted to using my base standard image which has a bunch of free apps and MS Office and other tweaks. I deployed successfully to 35 computers via multicast. The rough part is now having to install Adobe CS5 and FCS3 to all 35 computers. After I get through this nightmare I’m going to further inspect what I’ve been doing and take my time to make sure the same image can be redeployed multiple times without issue.

[foilpan]

have you tried using munki for app updates and deployment?

it would save you a ton of time, since you already have all your pkgs ready.

look into that before slogging through any manual work.

also, when you say the image didn’t work, what do you mean by that? does the restore fail at some point? does a pkg install barf somewhere in the process? does the image restore to disk, but the machine is unbootable? just trying to get an idea of what you’re experiencing.

for reference, i generally try to keep base images really small. a 10.6.6 image created the other day with instadmg is ~4.5 GB. it contains all apple updates, munki and config, a firstboot script to get things going, a hidden local admin, puppet, and git. then on first boot, munki launches to install any additional pkgs required and reboots again, if needed.

remember that since you have all the modular pieces, you can be pretty flexible in how you deploy the payload. it doesn’t all have to be baked into the deployment image, especially if you’re only working with 10/100 switching.

[dead2sin]

I use munki as well, but the problem here is that Final Cut Studio 3 is 40gb by itself. I keep that baked into my image to save time installing it afterwards.

I’m not sure what else to say besides possibly rebuild FCS3 (Ack!!!!). Depends what you have time for to be honest.

Nate

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