[dead2sin]

Hrmmm. It seems that ! might be a problem character for bash. I’m not 100% sure, but I just tried to echo it and got this:

[code]echo “blah!”
-bash: !”: event not found

echo “blah\!”
blah\!

echo blah\!
blah!
[/code]
It *looks* like escaping it has worked and I can confirm that putting it in quotes doesn’t work.

I also tried:
[code]
echo p\@\$\$w0rd\!
p@$$w0rd!
[/code]
I would double check when you generate the hash that each symbol is getting escaped. Just to make sure we are doing it exactly the same way, it should be like this:

[code]./shadowhash p\@\$\$w0rd\! > password_hash[/code]

If it doesn’t work doing it just like that with all the symbols escaped, I’m not sure what would cause it. This might warrant more research if you can’t get it working.

Nate

[dead2sin]

[QUOTE][u]Quote by: bw38[/u][p]So I’m still looking for help with the iLife 09.

But I decided to continue testing to make sure I’m doing everything right. So far, I managed to get an image that uses:
CreateUser
clearReg

and has software:
Office 2011
FireFox 3.6.10
Flip4mac 2.3.5.4

along with the typical updates in the vanilla script.

I think I may have screwed up the CreateUser password though. The password we use here includes an “!” without quotations. And I wasn’t very sure how to include that. I wasn’t able to do so when I used the password hash instructions. Any ideas on how to do this? I was able to reset the password with the OS X Disk just to make sure everything else works fine. But I need to get this fixed if possible.

Also, how I can created a second account for the user who is getting the machine? So for example, now I have the Administrator account, but can I get a second account called Joe Schmoe that has no password?

And lastly, how would I go about adding apps to the dock for all accounts that have been created?

More questions to come, but baby steps for now. I feel I accomplished a great deal today thanks to your instructions![/p][/QUOTE]

for creatuser, you want to either put the whole password in quotes, or escape the symbols like this:

“p@$$w0rd!”
or
p\@\$\$w0rd\!

For a second account, if it is generic, you can use create user. If it needs to be a specific person’s name, then I suggest just taking cleareg out of your build and let the setup assistant run on first boot (then you can customize the user account there).

Adding apps to docks is not too horrible. Basically, build the image and put it on a machine. Then, customize the dock icons however you’d like them. After that is complete, go to ~/Library/Preferences and grab com.apple.dock.plist. Take this plist and create a package that installs it to the following location:

[code]/System/Library/User Template/English.lproj/Library/Preferences/[/code]

This makes it so that each new user gets the customized dock.

Nate

[dead2sin]

[QUOTE][u]Quote by: rtrouton[/u][p]Has anyone seen how to set the ownership info centrally, like you could with OfficePID.plist in Office 2008? I’ve started testing this in my environment, and it looks like it’s asking for the personalization information on a per-user basis.[/p][/QUOTE]

This is what I came up with:

[url]http://www.osxdeployment.info/wiki/Office_2011_Settings[/url]

The OfficePID.plist went away and it is all done in ~/Library/Preferences/com.microsoft.office.plist now (Thankfully!).

Nate

[dead2sin]

I had done pretty much no scripting before I started doing Mac Images about 1.5 years ago. I can say that learning how to do stuff in bash will make your life a lot easier. It’ll suck at first, but once you get it down, it is VERY handy 🙂

Nate

[dead2sin]

What you would want to do is figure out which preference is getting changed and then apply that to the image using a firstboot package. Some examples of what can be done with a firstboot package’s postflight scripts are here: [url]http://www.osxdeployment.info/wiki/Firstboot_Postflight_Commands[/url]

I set all my settings using either a firstboot script, or a postflight script that modifies the Image directly at build time. Most things that are set in a standard plist can be modify when you build the image, but I have several settings I change when the image boots up for the first time.

Here is a guide for applying these types of settings: [url]http://www.osxdeployment.info/wiki/Firstboot_Package_Guide[/url]

I have two pages of commands that can be done at first boot or at build time. There is a command to start a screensaver over the login window and I know you can do a screensaver and lock the screen using a plist, but I don’t have that documented at the moment.

Nate

[dead2sin]

I know the feeling! I had 3 crazy weeks at the beginning of the semester. Thankfully stuff has calmed down and I have more time to focus on improving my process instead of barely keeping my head above water 🙂

Nate

[dead2sin]

Any luck with this? Get it working?

Nate

[dead2sin]

Anytime! I’m glad it is working for you now. If you run into any more roadblocks, feel free to ask.

I spent several months getting my InstaDMG build chain working well and I’m still tweaking it every couple of months to make it more efficient as far as my workflow is concerned. Your build chain and workflow will really evolve as you go on. I now install some things on first boot that tend to not be packaged correctly and as a result don’t work well with InstaDMG (Adobe Flash is a good example, along with some inventory software we use). My basic philosophy is install anything that is large (more then 100mb or so) using InstaDMG. Anything that gets updated frequently or is rather small (Firefox, Flash, Air, Flip4Mac) I now install upon first boot using Munki. I find this to be a good balance between baked into an image vs install on first boot. I am pretty obsessive about making sure my images are completely up to date and by doing it this way, I can make sure flash is the latest version possible, yet not have to rebuild the whole image just for a Flash update. You’ll figure out what is best for you as you build more images and run into issues.

Nate

[dead2sin]

Are you using the untouched 10.6_vanilla.catalog, or were changes made to it other then the build number? If it can’t find the installer disc, it is not even getting past 10.6_vanilla then. I would grab a fresh copy of 10.6_vanilla.catalog from the svn, rename your current one or move it out of the way. Then, add your specific build to 10.6_vanilla’s build section at the top and try running just the vanilla catalog. If that works, then try one catalog up in the chain. You don’t have run a full build, just get to the point where it has found the installer disc and is about to build then control-C it to terminate. I suspect there is something wrong in the 10.6_vanilla catalog if it works for you in the example but not with your own catalogs. You should *never* edit the 10.6_vanilla catalog except for the build numbers and volume name if you want to change it. All the other items there are exactly what you need. No extra packages should be added to 10.6_vanilla that are non-Apple updates (normally 10.6_vanilla is updated pretty rapidly, so I have never had to really worry about this before).

Let me know what that does. You could also post your 10.6_vanilla catalog so we can see it. We might be able to pick out what is causing it to not find the installer. Make sure your catalogs are all linked correctly as well. 10.6_vanilla should not have any “include-file:” entries on it and I’d imagine basic.catalog would include 10.6_vanilla and on from there.

Nate

[dead2sin]

Also, I am not sure of a way of disabling checksums, but I don’t suggest you do that anyways. It is an extremely helpful feature and assures that everything really IS identical every time you run it.

Nate

[dead2sin]

[QUOTE][u]Quote by: typofonic[/u][p]Thanks a lot for your answer Nate. Now I think I understand how it’s supposed to work. I have set up a chain of catalog files, however InstaUp2Date wont recognize my OS X Install DVDs.

I’ve tried putting discs named
“Mac OS X Install DVD.dmg” in both the BaseOS folder and the InstallerDiscs folder, but I get one of two errors each time I run InstaUp2Date:
———————————
Finding the Installer disc for setup
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “./instaUp2Date.py”, line 665, in
main()
File “./instaUp2Date.py”, line 627, in main
foundInstallerDiscs = findInstallerDisc.findInstallerDisc(allowedBuilds=thisController.catalogFileSettings[‘Installer Disc Builds’])
File “/Volumes/Lacie/instadmg/AddOns/InstaUp2Date/Resources/findInstallerDisc.py”, line 190, in findInstallerDisc
raise commonExceptions.FileNotFoundException(‘Unable to find OS Installer disc in any provided folder: ‘ + str(searchItems))
Resources.commonExceptions.FileNotFoundException: Unable to find OS Installer disc in any provided folder: [‘/Volumes/Lacie/instadmg/InstallerFiles/InstallerDiscs’, ‘/Volumes/Lacie/instadmg/InstallerFiles/BaseOS’]
——————————–
OR
——————————–
Finding the Installer disc for setup
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “./instaUp2Date.py”, line 665, in
main()
File “./instaUp2Date.py”, line 629, in main
foundInstallerDiscs = findInstallerDisc.findInstallerDisc()
File “/Volumes/Lacie/instadmg/AddOns/InstaUp2Date/Resources/findInstallerDisc.py”, line 115, in findInstallerDisc
raise ValueError(‘In legacy mode the item “%s” was named like an installer disc, but was not a dmg’ % thisItem)
ValueError: In legacy mode the item “/Volumes/Lacie/instadmg/InstallerFiles/BaseOS/Mac OS X Install DVD.dmg” was named like an installer disc, but was not a dmg
———————————

I have tried with both a retail 10.6.3 disc saved manually using Disk Utility and one saved using the importDisc InstaUp2Date script.

The weird thing is that both discs work just fine with InstaDMG by itself, just not InstaUp2Date.

I’ve run “svn update” so I’m on the newest version.

Also I have tried commenting out the build number in the catalog files as suggested on the forums. No luck yet.

Any ideas?

Also, isn’t there an option to skip the checksum part of InstaUp2Date completely?[/p][/QUOTE]

Import a disc using only –automatic (leave out –legacy) like so:
[code]sudo ./importDisk.py –automatic[/code]

This will put the build # in the disc name. Then, in 10.6_vanill.catalog, you can place your build # into the tag at the top if it doesn’t match any of them (ONLY do this if your 10.6.3 disc is a retail disc). I had to add my retail disc because it didn’t match any.

[code]Installer Disc Builds = 10A432, 10B504, 10C540, 10D573, 10D575, 10F569[/code]

Then try it again and see what happens.

Nate

[dead2sin]

The minimum you need in a catalog is as follows:

Description Filename Hash

So for example, as you see in that example:

Office 2008 SP2 Office Installer.mpkg sha1:021a599899d12958bc9aa02d0b9a5002c0b8d79f

Office 2008 SP2 is the description, then there is a tab, Office Installer.mpkg is the file name and of course sha1:021a599899d12958bc9aa02d0b9a5002c0b8d79f is the hash. This is something each item in a catalog needs.

As far as modularality is concerned, you accomplish that via chaining catalogs together using includes. If you plan wisely, you end up with a very modular InstaUp2Date setup.

For instance, my setup at work for a staff image is as follows:

10.6_vanilla.catalog–>common.catalog–>basesnowleopard.catalog–>facultystaff.catalog

10.6_vanilla I always leave as is from the repo, or I update it if the repo isn’t most recent (which isn’t very often).

common contains things EVERY image I make will get. This includes Office, ClearReg and various other settings that every image I build contains.

basesnowleopard is the basis for my facultystaff image and this is stuff that every staff image gets. I make 2 flavors of staff image, so anything both need go here.

finally faculty staff has stuff taht only faculty staff get. This is specific to this image alone.

Now for a computer lab image, I use different admin passwords and various other software packages, so its build chain looks like this:

10.6_vanilla.catalog–>common.catalog–>labbasesnowleopard–>dhavidlab
or
10.6_vanilla.catalog–>common.catalog–>labbasesnowleopard–>dhimaclab

These builds are identical except for the last catalog. dhimaclab is 10gb and dhavid lab is 70gb. The last catalog makes all the difference (It has Avid, Final Cut and Pro Tools LE).

You will notice, they use the exact same first two catalogs. It took me a while to weed all the images down to their common items, but now that I have, I only need to update it once and all the images have the updates. I am guilty of manually placing the iLife updates in the catalogs manually for each image. I do this for my own sanity, but I am sure there is a better way to do it (I have not gotten there yet).

Nate

[dead2sin]

You want everything in the InstaUp2DatePackages folder. If they are there, you do not need the full path.

Not sure if you checked it out already or not, but [url]http://www.osxdeployment.info/wiki/InstaUp2Date_Guide[/url] has some good info on best practice for using InstaDMG, etc.

Nate

[dead2sin]

If the files are in InstaUp2DatePackages, you do not need the full path. Also, It is worth nothing that you should never put stuff in 10.6_vanilla.catalog. Always make another catalog and call Vanilla using this:

[code]include-file: 10.6_vanilla.catalog[/code]

I’m not sure if you saw this guide or not, but it covers a lot of best practice type stuff and is a basic setup guide for InstaUp2Date: [url]http://www.osxdeployment.info/wiki/InstaUp2Date_Guide[/url]

There are some good examples there of catalog files and how you would want to string them together, etc. I’d suggest going through the guide and if you run into more issues/errors, feel free to ask.

Nate

[dead2sin]

I’ve had activation issues for Office 2011 when using it with instadmg (Volume licensed). If you install manually, it works fine. I am talking with our microsoft reps and I hope to get an answer about their “suggested” deployment method. I’m hoping there is some trick to deploying it en masse without installing it manually on each and every machine. I have a few things in mind that I might try before they get back to me though. I’ll post if I figure it out.

Nate

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