InstaDMG vs SIU

[dmgraham]

It seems that the principles laid out in the Image Creation Revolution can be done with SIU and a custom workflow. I.e., you can start with a Mac OS X install DVD, apply options, create user accounts, add packages, etc. What specifically does InstaDMG offer compared to SIU in this regard?

[knowmad]

please define for those of us who don’t know…. what is SIU?

as for why to use IDMG… well, for one, it works, for two it allows the rapid creation of images with pre-installed software without tying up multiple machines, images that are hardware independent (mostly). I use it to let me create images for groups as small as 4 machines, where I would otherwise not waste the time and instead bludgeon a general purpose image into place. This way i get what I need where I need it without spending my whole day building the image.

If SIU does the same thing for the same price…. link please?

[Patrick Fergus]

System Image Utility, part of the OS X Server admin tools.

[url]http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/serveradmintools105.html[/url]

– Patrick

[dmgraham]

[QUOTE][u]Quote by: knowmad[/u][p]please define for those of us who don’t know…. what is SIU[/p][/QUOTE]

My apologies. The System Image Utility (SIU) is part of the free Server Admin Tools supplied by Apple to create NetBoot disk images and NetInstall configurations. It allows you to create custom workflows based on Automator which are quite similar to the options in IDMG except it’s entirely GUI driven.

For instance, you can start with an image of the install DVD and customize the packages, add user accounts, apply system config settings (e.g., directory services, computer name, etc), enable automated install, add packages and post-install scripts, partition/erase the install volume, etc. In fact, some of the items which feel a bit kludgy with IDMG like adding user accounts is a five-second operation with SIU. It seems to me that the time spent developing IDMG could be better spent on enhancing or adding to the SIU automator actions.

I’m new to this so I’m sure there are some things I’m overlooking, which is why I’m trying to find out what the benefits are of each.

[knowmad]

and there is no transfer between the two formats?

[dmgraham]

[QUOTE][u]Quote by: macshome[/u][p]SIU creates NetBoot or Netinstall .nbi sets. InstaDMG creates an ASR deployment image.[/p][/QUOTE]

I realize that SIU creates the NBI structure, but there is an ASR-ready install DMG within it (i.e., /Volumes/NetInstall/System/Installation/Packages/System.dmg). Pulling this image out of the resulting NBI set would be trivial. Also, I wonder if a custom workflow could be created to customize the output.

I guess I’m just wondering what the reasoning was behind starting entirely from scratch rather than using what Apple supplied and just adding and/or modifying workflows.

[larkost]

[QUOTE][u]Quote by: macshome[/u][p]It sounds like you are using the 10.4 version of SIU. In the new, Automator based, SIU the blockcopy images are gone.

Which isn’t to say that you can’t create a NetBoot set with SIU and then convert it to an ASR image. But that will require more work than InstaDMG really as the system would be configured for NetBoot.[/p][/QUOTE]

To be clear, the blockcopy option is gone because Apple has made the “from folder” option for creating disk images much more compatible with restoring via block-level copying than it used to be. Now you don’t have to worry about things until you hit 256 GB on your target partition (the one you are restoring to). It used to be that the geometry of the disk had to be very similar, but those restrictions were eased in 10.3. For more details see “man asr” and look for the “HOW TO GET THE FASTEST RESTORES” section.

So the files produced by SIU are just as compatible as those produced by InstaDMG. The only things you have to do is to pull them out of the NBI folder, and run asr over them to make sure that it will be happy streaming them.

At the moment the big difference is that InstaDMG has more people around it. Otherwise said: no one seems to be writing things for SIU. I really like SIU’s idea of having everything in a workflow, but there are some missing pieces before I start using it.

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