[alantrewartha]

the code i got with that checkout command

svn checkout -r 187 http://instadmg.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/ instadmg-read-only

produced the same issues. Mail is still on 3.5 (the version in the 10.5.6 install disk that came with the nehalem macs) and not 3.6 which you get if you run the combo update manually. (and Word is still messed up)

[alantrewartha]

thanks for this thread – i only noticed this problem when Word refused to work at all

[alantrewartha]

as an example of putting it in a PKG here’s the NTP stuff from our current custom PKG:

[code]timezone=’Europe/London’
timeserver=xxxxx

ln -sf “/usr/share/zoneinfo/${timezone}” “$3/etc/localtime” # Set timezone by creating a symbolic link
echo “server ${timeserver} iburst” > “$3/private/etc/ntp.conf” # Create an appropriate ntpd.conf file
sed -i .bak ‘s/TIMESYNC=-NO-/TIMESYNC=-YES-/’ “$3/etc/hostconfig” # Update the hostconfig file to use NTP
[/code]

as an aside – does anyone know if that iburst setting in the ntp.conf is still valid/useful

[alantrewartha]

I went through the same steps as InstaDMG uses to make a server install

https://www.afp548.com/forum/viewtopic.php?showtopic=22938

[alantrewartha]

have you run the InstaDMG PatchOfficeUpdate droplet on your installer PKGs?

https://www.afp548.com/filemgmt/index.php?id=84

[alantrewartha]

thanks for that. the paper setting thing is sort of funny ha ha – in that it makes regionalisation sense 🙂

the /private/var/root/Library/Preferences/com.apple.HIToolbox.plist file is funny peculiar tho. do you enable root in your setup? it’s content is similar to the /Lib/Pref/com.apple.HIToolbox.plist file except its notable that the values are arrays there, eg

[code] AppleTimeResID = Dict {
smRoman = Array {
2
}
}
[/code]

again – cheers for doing that.

[alantrewartha]

[i][quote]The following files were modified when setting the Country and Keyboard Layout in the first two steps of the Setup Assistant:
/private/var/root/Library/Preferences/com.apple.HIToolbox.plist
/private/var/root/Library/Preferences/com.apple.print.PrinteringPrefs.plist
/private/var/root/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.HIToolbox.{UUID}.plist
/Library/Preferences/com.apple.HIToolbox.plist
/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist
[/quote][/i]

excellent work there – thank you. so that’s /Lib/Pref/.GlobalPreferences.plist and com.apple.HIToolbox.plist as listed in my orginal script, and root’s Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.HIToolbox.{UUID}.plist.

The remaining 2 files don’t exist on my images systems (as they stand) – what’s in there after you run that? Just out of interest, what stuff that you can see in a -c “Print” PlistBuddy of those files looks relevant/useful/interesting?

[alantrewartha]

small addition to the efforts to localise keyboard input etc. after imaging my machines with the steps ^^ up thread, i still found some of my users reverting to US keyboard (“I can’t type a pound sign any more!”)

possibly the users ByHost HIToolbox plist (taken over from logging into a Tiger machine — we have networked home folders) was being found wanting by the Leopard client and getting a default US value

the only place i found remnants of a plist refering to a US layout was in the root preferences:

/private/var/root/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.HIToolbox.[byhostkeystuffhere].plist

so i edited that (PlistBuddy) to set it to UK (with much the same commands as in the the steps up thread) and that LOOKS like it might be doing the trick. i logged in as a user with no library and it made a default byhost HIToolbox plist that is definitely setting for UK alright.

trouble from the imaging PoV is that the root ByHost plist isn’t IN the image is it. it must be generated at some point from a setting some place else. not sure when either.

hope this helps

[alantrewartha]

are you saying that this format file can be fed to the installer in the -applyChoiceChangesXML option as it stands now – or is this in a new version of installer? (the help on the command line still only says “…an array of choiceIdentifiers…Each choiceIdentifier specified will be toggled in order…”

[alantrewartha]

ok, just checked for sure, and we’ve reduced ‘first boot script’ down to just AD binding and enabling appletalk! (which isn’t even working well on our network 🙁 — but our next step is to dump appletalk by ensuring all our printers accept IPP printing anyway)

everything else is in script-only PKGs. we use a standard ‘activate ARD and SSH’ PKG (script only) that is baked into our standard DMG and keep other custom settings in one ‘customising’ PKG that is run at image time

here’s the script from the ARD/SSH PKG
[code]/System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/Resources/kickstart \
-targetdisk “$3” -activate -configure -access -on -users admin_user_name -privs -all -restart -agent

/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c “Delete Disabled” “$3″/System/Library/LaunchDaemons/ssh.plist
[/code]

and here’s the script we use for timezone setting in the customising PKG

[code]# Set timezone, timeserver, timesync=YES
timezone=’Europe/London’
timeserver=ourtimeserver.fully.qualified.domain
TARGET=”$3”
target_volume=`echo ${TARGET} | sed ‘s/\/$//’` # Remove trailing slash from target_volume (if there is one)
ln -sf “${target_volume}/usr/share/zoneinfo/${timezone}” “${target_volume}/etc/localtime” # Set timezone by creating a symbolic link
echo “server ${timeserver} iburst” > “${target_volume}/private/etc/ntp.conf” # Create an appropriate ntpd.conf file
sed -i .bak ‘s/TIMESYNC=-NO-/TIMESYNC=-YES-/’ “${target_volume}/etc/hostconfig” # Update the hostconfig file to use NTP
[/code]

[alantrewartha]

“Setting the Time Zone, Activating ARD and SSH, and enabling root”

i never enable root, so can’t help you there, but activating ARD and SSH can be done in a simple script or script only installer PKG. Time zone i think ditto.

i will dig out my scripts at work tomorrow

[alantrewartha]

any progress samplem?

it might be coincidence but i’ve moved Office up the build chain (so there are a bunch of installers of lesser significance installing after instead of before it) and since then it’s pushed through in ~15 mins in the 12.1.1 (and then in no time in .2/.3/.4)

[alantrewartha]

what he said ^^

my preference would be to use MCX (workgroup manager) rather than tamper with files. You can set ‘Once” to manage Dock items for guest machines or a group of users. (if this isn’t appropriate – plz ignore!)

[alantrewartha]

but have you run the instaDMG PatchOfficeUpdate on the PKGs?

https://www.afp548.com/filemgmt/index.php?id=84&comments=1

[alantrewartha]

now that does sound like you have yet to apply the Office Patcher – without which the MS installers don’t actually work, they just fail and instadmg carries on without them

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