[embee]

Thanks again for the response. This is truly what makes the Mac support community so great.

I know you’re probably busy in MWSF right now, but when you get a chance, could you point me toward John D’s tips and tricks?

I have searched for afp548 users with names close (there’s a JonnyD), but didn’t find much. I have paged through the afp548 tips section without much success. I found Allen Marcus’ white paper, but it doesn’t seem to speak much to this. I even Googled a few terms to find it, to no avail.

Thanks again!

I’m also posting this question to the system-imaging Apple mailing list, just to give a head’s up.

[embee]

Thanks for the suggestion matwyn. Is the automatic naming function in SIU the same as choosing a file under the Sharing Prefs tab? There is no official information in Apple’s documentation about this. If I need a list of MAC addresses, it doesn’t seem like it would be practical here.

I’m just looking for predictable NetBoot client hostnames so I can find them remotley when needed.

Does anyone know of books or online resources that explain the intricacies of NetBoot and client boot images?

[embee]

Awesome. Thanks for the help, MT. I’ll give it a try.

[embee]

Thanks for the quick response. I knew this was the right place to pose this question.

I should have given a bit more detail in my question. I certainly have no problem with being onsite, I am just a bit reluctant to physically connect a display to a headless server if I don’t have to. Some of the servers that I manage don’t have video cards so I would have to power down, install one, [drag a display to the rack/server room or connect to a KVM], do the upgrade, then remove the card and display.

I would much prefer to just boot from the DVD, run the appropriate installer/upgrade command after finding the server with sa_srchr, and reboot. This seems like what you are suggesting in step 2 of your response, but my I was hoping to get feedback from someone who has tried this successfully. Will the command listed in your [excellent] headless server install how-to article work for an upgrade as well?

/usr/sbin/installer –verboseR –lang English –pkg \
/Volumes/”Mac OS X Server Install Disc 1″/system/installation/packages/osinstall.mpkg –target “/volumes/volumename

I didn’t think of your last suggestion, that would probably work, but it seems a bit more complicated than neccessary. Although with the complication comes an additional working backup…

I need to get some time at work to experiment. Thanks again for the quick response.

[embee]

D’oh! In that huge post, I did neglect two other significant troubleshooting steps taken before I went to the Apple store. I did zap PRAM and reset the PMU.

[embee]

I was brought to this particular post by Googling for the following string:

PMU FORCED SHUTDOWN, CAUSE = -122

This is a great site that Josh and Joel (and everyone else) run, and I wanted to give something back this time instead of just taking information. Mine is not the same cause value, but I thought it would be worth passing along anyway.

Short answer: This particular cause code indicates the power supply beyond the G5 (the UPS or wall).

Long answer: I need to give some background (doesn’t everybody?)…

I have been a Mac support professional for the past three years, and I worked in prepress for the six years before where I maintained the Macs in the office. I have held a position supporting Macs at a “national resource” applied physics laboratory for the last two years. I earned my ACDT and ACPT certification last fall and help to support about 600 Scientist/Engineer Mac users. I help really smart people (a lot of rocket scientists) all day with their Macs.

A few months ago, I was able to purchase a new DP 2.0 GHz G5 tower for home. It ran Panther just fine for several weeks. Then Tiger was released and I upgraded. All of the sudden, I would return to the computer after a day at work, or otherwise stepping away for a while, and it would be powered down. I poured over the logs and noticed the above entry during the subsequent boot sequence. My first resource was Google and didn’t find a whole lot. Nothing definitive about specific cause codes anyway. I read something about someone having a similar problem fixed when an Apple Store replaced the power supply. I thought, OK- they could be related, but continued my search over the next week or two, carefully noting times and log entries for these shutdowns in iCal. There’s really not too much out there on the web about this. I tried the basics- the hardware test CD and the more advanced Apple System Diagnostics CD- they turned up nothing on overnight loops. I moved up the scale of drastic measure and reinstalled Tiger (I was having a few other small OS issues too)- nope same problem. I wiped the drive and did a fresh install- same problem. I came to the conclusion that the Tiger upgrade was a coincidence.

I decided to take the computer to my local Apple Store. I was hesitant because I knew I could do the hardware work myself, but I figured I do this all day at work, why not let someone else take care of me for a change? Well, I prepared my Mac with a new temporary admin account and password, printed out my iCal with crash dates, and some select system.log snippets with the “PMU FORCED SHUTDOWN, CAUSE = -122” line highlighted, and headed off to the Apple Store to let them know who I am and what I found. This was early on a Monday afternoon. They assured me they would triage it later that day and I noticed the sign in the store stating 3 day turnarounds on repairs. I waited and checked the online status of my machine. By Wednesday, the online status was still “waiting for triage.” I was a bit upset. I stopped by the store on my way home from work to see what was up. The staff assured me that the problem had been narrowed down to the PMU on the logic board, and a replacement logic board was already sitting in a box next to my mac in the back. They would install it and test it the next day. I called the next day and the tech assured me that the repair was done and they would need to test it until tomorrow- Friday at this point. I was a bit frustrated, but agreed to wait. I picked up my G5 Friday after work, and the paperwork showed that they only replaced the battery. Whatever- I was a bit peeved, but I returned home and plugged my G5 in. It ran fine that evening. Saturday morning it shutdown on me again! Didn’t take too long. Same system.log entry.

I wasn’t upset at the Apple Store for only replacing the battery. In my certification, I was taught to start with the small (read:cheap) stuff- it just makes sense (get it? c’mon, chuckle). I was upset with the Apple Store for taking FIVE DAYS to do so. I keep these batteries in my office desk drawer for the very reason that they are OFTEN needed. I was upset that someone there told me the logic board was to be replaced and it was not. I was upset at the Apple Store for not keeping their online status updated.

Back to the real reason why you’ve read this far…

I was done with the Apple Store and decided to deal with it myself. I ordered a replacement logic board and power supply from Apple. The parts promptly arrived and I eagerly installed them. The damn G5 shut down the following morning- again with the same system.log entry. OK. Stop and think. Well, I had enough time to think while I pulled the replacement logic board and power supply back out of my G5 and reinstalled the original components.

I have my G5 plugged into an APC 500 UPS. It’s a decent one with a USB connection that OS X can use for communication. I disconnected the USB connection- same shutdown problem the following day. My UPS had been recently chirping (indicating a failing backup battery), so I plugged the G5 into the surge-only protection side. Same problem. I was almost out of ideas.

Desperate times call for desperate measures.

I saved any open documents…

quit iTunes and iPhoto to protect my libraries…

and jerked the power cable from the back of the computer.

Wait a few seconds, powered it back up, and checked the system.log. WHAMMO!!! The very same log entry!

Now, to lay people (myself anyway), when I read the words “PMU FORCED SHUTDOWN,” my brain interprets that as the PMU forced the shutdown. Nope. That led me on a wild goose chase through lots of potentially expensive hardware tests (warranties rock!).

I have ordered a replacement battery for my aging UPS in the hopes that it will help condition my home power, and the problem will go away. I won’t be satisfied that the problem is resolved until I have 3 weeks of uptime or so, but I’ll keep you posted.

Thanks for reading this far, I’m not sure I would have…

[embee]

I just wanted to piggyback on what Tim posted above. I just went through a similar situation and I was informed of NFSManager- a shareware GUI for, well, managing NFS exports.

The kicker is this- subdirectories can’t be mounted directly UNLESS the main NFS export is a full volume.

At least that’s what I’ve observed (and been told).

[Author]

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