New User of InstaDMG need help please

[sgstuart]

Hi All,
I am new at using InstaDMG, and need help pretty much from the beginning. I have downloaded and installed the 1.5rc1, but will be using this for a 10.6.2 image to begin with. So I tried to run the “svn checkout http://instadmg.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/ instadmg-read-only” from terminal and it gave me errors:

svn: PROPFIND request failed on ‘/svn/trunk’
svn: PROPFIND of ‘/svn/trunk’: Could not resolve hostname `instadmg.googlecode.com’: Host not found (http://instadmg.googlecode.com)

I have read the pdf file based for 1.4b3, which I am assuming is still current.

I have moved the .PKG file for Mac OSX 10.6 from the hidden Packages folder on the OSX installer DVD to the Base OS Folder(I read that it needs to be a DMG for the Base OS, so I am not sure if what I have currently would work). I moved the MacOSXUpdCombo10.6.2.dmg into a folder called “01” under the BaseUpdates folder and I moved a firefox .dmg into a “01” folder under CustomPKG.

I have not tried to do anything yet in running the command just planning and putting files in folders. Is what I did correct so far?

What do I need to do next? How can I get the latest version, as I understand that there is a bug in 1.5rc1 for 10.6? How do I use the other features InstaUp2Date? I will not have any local users except for an admin account which would be the same everywhere, so would I need to do something for that?

If there is a good place to point me for this information, please let me know. I have not been able to find enough, except for the command above to do that checkout, which does not seem to work.

Thanks,
Steven Stuart

[larkost]

Your problem with the svn command sounds like you were not connected to the internet at the time. In case you missed it, that command brings down the latest version of InstaDMG from the code.google site. So if you don’t have a working internet connection at the time it is going to fail like that.

You never need to move any files at all around from the Installer DVD, I don’t quite understand how you got that idea. Much better idea: connect to the internet, put your 10.6.0 installer DVD in the drive (that is the only 10.6 retail disk available to my knowledge), open Terminal.app, and run the following commands:

[code]cd ~/Desktop
svn checkout http://instadmg.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/ instadmg
sudo -s ‘./instadmg/AddOns/InstaUp2Date/importDisk.py –legacy –automatic && ./instadmg/AddOns/InstaUp2Date/instaUp2Date.py –process 10.6_vanilla'[/code]

You will have to type your password for the second command. And I should note that the whole process is going to take 2+ hours (depending on the speed of your disks and internet connection for downloading all the updates).

At the end of the process you will have a nicely baked “slipstreamed” 10.6.2 image with all the latest updates. The “importDisk.py” part of this is only necessary the first time, as that will suck in a copy of your installer disk to be used on subsequent runs.

[sgstuart]

Hi larkost,
Thank you for responding. I actually do have a working internet connection, and at the same time of doing that, I was looking at the googlecode page, that said to type that command. We are behind a firewall, could that be the problem? Is there additional steps I might need to take to get thru the firewall with my firewall ID and password?

I got the idea of pulling the pkg file from the 1.4b3 pdf file. It said to place a .DMG file of your OS.

I also had the 10.6.0 installer DVD in the drive when I ran that command, the only thing that may be an issue there, is I was booted in 10.5.8.

So based on what you said here, I should boot from my 10.6 partition, (Do not install InstaDMG) run the 3 commands that you wrote below with the installer DVD in the drive as well. The 2nd line will more or less install the latest version of InstaDMG. The 3rd & final line, must do the Base OS and Base Updates Folder pieces? So after that it will be 10.6.2, which you said. This definitely sounds easier than what I was trying. I did see those 3 lines plus one more in the MacWorld presentation slides, but since I was not there, I do not have any notes around what those commands did. So I am shooting a little from the hip.
Based on your importDisk.py statement. If I run all of this from a MacBook Pro (because that is what is at my desk, not wanting to walk across campus to the lab), will these updates be machine based, or will it work and be fine no matter what hardware I eventually run this eventual installer on. I am sure it will take me a couple rounds before it is good, but the less I will need to do the better. Rather do the additions because I decide to add additional software, scripts or updates, instead of because I do not understand the proper procedure.

Thank you very much for taking the time to set me in the correct direction.

Thanks,
Steven Stuart

[larkost]

It could be your firewall messing with your outbound connection, especially if they filter things and/or have a proxy in place. I have never worked in an environment like that so don’t know what to say.

– Yes, if you are trying for a 10.6 image, then you need to be booted from 10.6.

– Yes, the “svn” line pulls down the latest version.

– The first half of the final line creates an image of the Installer DVD that is in your DVD drive, so that only needs to be run once.

– The second half of the final line (everything after the &&) uses InstaUp2Date to setup the BaseUpdates and CustomPKG folders for a “vanilla 10.6” run. At the moment that is all the updates for a 10.6.2 image that should not have anything waiting for it in Software Update (except computer specific stuff and iLife Support Update 9.04, since they have not released it otherwise). Since you don’t have all of those packages already setup it will download them for you.

– The second half of that last line also include the “–process” flag which tells InstaUp2Date that once it has things setup it should go ahead and run InstaDMG with the settings it has.

– The design of InstaDMG is to make an image that is not dependent on your hardware. At the moment everything works great since there really is no “special” hardware out there. The last bit of this (overlooking the iMacs that came out right before 10.5 that were brought back into the flock with 10.5) was when some computers had DVD drives and some did not: the DVD software would only install if you had the DVD drive on the hardware you were on. The only other thing to be wary of is new hardware. If it shipped after the last “dot update” then it has special support for that hardware in the OS it came with (which is a special build). Almost always (except for cases like those iMacs) you just have to wait for the next “dot update” and everything is back to normal.

– And there is an important note: what this produces is an “image” not an “installer”. The distinction is that installers apply over the files that are already there (“upgrading” it), where as a restore replaces what is there completely (destroying all data) but is much, much faster (and a bit cleaner).

[admin.dns]

Hi Larkost,

Quick question about the resulting image – today is the first time I’m attempting to use instadmg. I’m wondering is it safe to assume one can use command line ASR to drop the image onto another drive (source to target)?

Thanks,

Simon

[larkost]

Absolutely, it should be pre-scanned and ready to go. You can use anything that uses the ASR system to restore it, so: command line asr, Disk Utility, Bombich’s NetRestore, Apple’s NetRestore, DeployStudio, Caspar’s system, PSU Blast, etc… Since everyone is using the same underlying system to deploy full images it creates a nice nitch for tools like InstaDMG.

[sgstuart]

Hi larkost,
I brought my work laptop home to run those commands and so far it seems to be working fine. I will have to test the rest of it later. I meant to say “proxy firewall” and I looked more into that and apparently it makes a huge difference being an MS Proxy therefore using NTLM. I spent most of yesterday trying to find a way to get svn to work thru it, but could not find anything that worked, including NTLMaps( at least so far). There is a lot of configuration possibilities for that too.

Another question, since it would be very hard to take a desktop home. The folder and all the files that get created on the desktop. Could I move them over to other machines and everything would be able to work off the new machine(s). Or is there pieces that get put elsewhere.

Thanks,
Steven Stuart

[larkost]

There is nothing about those folders that can’t be copied to places. Although InstaUp2Date might not be happy if you have missing updates and it can’t go out on the net looking for them. But InstaDMG itself should work fine. So you should be able to take the folder from one computer to the other after populating it with updates, and it will work fine.

I am surprised that there are places that are this locked down. I guess I am just used to working for places that sit on very large internet connections, and trust their employees.

[sgstuart]

Hi larkost,
Is there a link that would point to a better and more up to date version of the 1.4b3 InstaDMG.pdf? Is there a link to some FAQ’s that would give a good description of what each piece does. If not, whenever I do get the answers to my questions, I would be more than happy to pull everything that I accumulate together to update that PDF.

My next main question, which it does hit on in that PDF, but with the InstaUp2Date I am a little confused. In the PDF it says to create subfolders under the BaseUpdates and CustomPKG folders, with numbers, and if you have more than 9 precede the single digit ones with a 0, which I understand that the programming language will see “10” before “2”. However, after I ran the above commands it created shortcuts to the Caches/InstaUp2DateCache directory the downloaded updates from Apple, with single digit numbers. So at this point lets say that I want to add 10 more non-apple applicatsion (ie. Firefox, Adobe CS4, ADMitMac,…). Which of the following 4 would I do:

1. rename the shortcuts to “01” – “05” and then start at creating a new folder calling it “06” and adding the .DMG or .PKG into that folder, then doing the same for the additional folders.

or

2. rename the shortcuts to “01” – “05” and then copying the .DMG or “.PKG” files into CustomPKG and then renaming the files to “06” (which would then make it hard to keep track of what folder was what).

or

3. rename the shortcuts to “01” – “05” and then creating new shortcuts pointing to the InstaUp2DateCache folder. I am assuming no here, based on a previous post I saw, because InstaUp2Date likes to control its folders.

or

4. None of the above and what I would do.

Our company has the largest Active Directory in the world even larger than Microsoft itself. It is very cumbersome and causes many problems within the Apple world as well as others. So unfortunately I have to live with it. 🙁 I will figure a way to get thru it with NTLMaps though, eventually. 🙂

Thanks,
Steven Stuart

[larkost]

1) On the documentation front, sadly this has not been kept up, and it could be argued that it is my fault, since I am the one who is making chances to the process without creating end-user documentation for it. But most of the time I have put into documentation has been creating slides for conferences. We did have a few people along the way talk about doing documentation, but nothing has ever happened from it. The most recent work of documentation was John DeTroy’s [url http://web.me.com/johnd/JohnDs_Site/Tips_%26_Tricks/Entries/2009/4/29_Sys_Mgmt_Add-ons.html%5DTips & Tricks[/url] on it, but that is not exactly comprehensive. There is also some written about it in Kevin White’s [url http://www.peachpit.com/store/product.aspx?isbn=0321684524&rll=1%5Dbook on deploying MacOS X[/url]. But I have not seen the latter, so can’t say anything more than it is in the index.

2) InstaUp2Date auto-numbers things, and if there are going to be less than 10 items in a folder does not bother with the leading 0 (if there are 100 or more it uses 2 0’s etc…). You can go ahead and add them if you are using InstaUp2Date only to set things up, then make manual changes. But a better solution would be to create your own catalog file with the additions you want to make, and then allow InstaUp2Date to incorporate those. That when when a new update gets added to the vanilla catalog files (iLife Support 9.0.4 looks like it is finally coming out), it can be integrated without changing your setup.

I should also note that at some point the folders are going to go away and things are going to go in a more InstaUp2Date-like direction… whenever I can get to it… *sigh*.

[sgstuart]

Hi larkost,
Based on your catalog suggestion, I was able to find your documentation on InstaUp2Date:
code google com/p/instadmg/wiki/InstaUp2Date

That documentation I think is very good. I still have a couple of questions, but I think for once they are easy, and I am starting to understand the whole thing now (InstaUp2Date, is changing how InstaDMG is used almost completely, in a good way).

1. In your documentation you were saying (I believe) that we could create a catalog that calls multiple other catalogs. By this I assume the top system settings of this main catalog would be used, and the created image would be based on that name. My question is how would I call the catalogs, as I do not see any samples on that.

2. Also I see Base OS Disk: but all of the say not yet implemented, so I gather it automatically will take the Caches/BaseImageCache from their. Does this also imply that you can not have multiple Base OS Images?

3. I assume that if I want to create lproj and other scripts, I would create them with packageMaker (or equivalent) and create a package out of the script. Then I would put them in the catalogs under System Settings: If there is an easier way, that just takes the scripts let me know. Also where do those links(shortcuts) show up within the InstaDMG portion? Would they show up under CustomPKG? is that where everything other than OS Updates would show up (ie. Third Party Software, Software Settings)? I am assuming that Software Setting would be some type of script of lproj setting as well, like system settings.

Now onto a few questions outside of the catalogs.

1. If I want to make the Base OS different for instance maybe not have all of the printer drivers, or the languages, but install X11 (hypothetical at this point), how would I do that thru the importDisk.py. Would the installerChoices.xml be what I change?

2. On InstallerChoices.xml How do you know what each of those ‘s will do, because I assume some will uncheck (not installing) and some will check(install) the item. The Default array, with PrinterDriversGroup, Guten_Printer_Drivers, AdditionalFonts, and LanguageTranslations, based on the above question what is it installing and not installing?

Thanks,
Steven Stuart

[larkost]

1) To include another catalog file the line should look like:

include-file: [ filename | file path | file url ]

If you use the name form, then the file has to be in the CatalogFoles folder and can either have the .catalog ending or not (it will be postpended if not). The file path version should be absolute and needs to be the complete name. The file URL can point at any http or https location you would like and it will be downloaded (but not cached). You can put these lines anywhere you like in your catalog files, and they will be parsed at that point. In most cases you will probably want to put include lines right up front.

2) I had it in mind for a long time to change how InstaDMG finds the OS installed disc(s), and finally pulled that trigger a few weeks ago. I anticipated this long ago in the .catalog file format for InstaUp2Date, but have not made the changes to InstaUp2Date to use this new ability. I have been debating whether I should put in the time, since at the moment you need to run 10.5 form 10.5 and 10.6 from 10.6, so you are really only using one OS installer anyways. So this will probably get deferred for a while, but will be included if I finally get around to getting InstaDMG 2 out.

3) I have no idea what you mean by “create lproj”, and the rest of your question is really unclear. If you are asking do you need to embed scripts into packages to get them to work, then the answer is yes.

4) You don’t change your installer disc, you apply an InstallerChoicesXML file to it. So importDisk.py is only run once, but you use different InstallerChoicesXML files for it. This is not well setup at the moment, so you have to do it by manually moving which is next to the installer disc.

5) There are two answers: a) You just have to figure it out. b) Rather than using the form of InstallerChoicesXML file that simulates clicks, you need to use the one that specifies everything.

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