[tristan_mason]

Hi There

That’s the problem. Build on a client OS machine only. No one has any good experience with the server OS.

Cheers

Tristan

[tristan_mason]

You need a vanilla OS install disc that is not machine specific. An apple store or supplier can provide one for you.

At present they are 10.6 and 10.6.3 flavours unless Apple has released something very recently.

Regards

Tristan

[tristan_mason]

that all makes sense. i’m just trying to get the most out of it too.

cheers

tris

[tristan_mason]

[QUOTE][u]Quote by: Allister[/u][p]The single most comprehensive book on the subject is Enterprise Managed Mac Preferences by Ed Marczak and Greg Neagle. Check it out when you have a chance, it’s a quick read and full of real valuable info on everything you’re trying to do.

Allister [/p][/QUOTE]

Bought it and am reading as I type (well not quite but you get the idea…).

Thanks for the good oil. MCX is making sense the more I read.

I am about to purchase Casper Imaging Suite by JAMF. Am not sure how much of the last 2 months will be consigned to the bin but i’m betting i’ll have a sound understanding of what is going on under the hood. Will be interesting to see side by side what works well. I figured that in the long run the Faculty will be better off with an “on the shelf” solution. We’ll see.

Tris

[tristan_mason]

I’ll try and describe it first. Am not sure if the server will handle a screen shot.

Open the “firstboot.pmdoc” in PackageMaker. Click on the disclosure triangle in the left hand “Contents” pane to reveal the two files. Select the first file (now named to your co/institution and select “Contents” in the right pane. Select the file below then click the “Execute” check box for “Owner” and “Group”. Repeat for the second file in the contents pane. Save, build, include and test.

Let me know how that goes. If not I can email you screens from my setup.

Some knowledge with PackageMaker is really helpful for this whole process as is Composer. Composer saved me a great deal of pain and all for under a hundy.

Regards

Tristan

[tristan_mason]

I had a similar experience until I realized I needed to tick the check box to make it executable in package maker. Then everything worked. It’s the same as the 644 bit in the terminal but the easy way.

Hope this helps.

Tristan

[tristan_mason]

OK, I got the mouse and globals and the SUS from Composer. I had deleted bits of them i deemed not required from my test pkg’s hence no settings had changed (duh!). Onto the menu bar items suppression…

I’ve had a squiz at the MCX stuff bug i’ve not quite got my head around it conceptually. Tomorrow perhaps.

Tris

[tristan_mason]

Thanks for that Allister.

Just had a fiddle with fseveter. Blimey, what a great app. Never used such a tool before but it’s very useful. I’ll have a gander at your MCX stuff also as i’m keen to use something a little more global and my pkg payloads are getting up there in sheer numbers, nearly 40 all in all which is a lot to manage and more to the point de-bug when something doesn’t work.

Since i’ve been going down this road i’ve become a terminal user which I never set out to do but it too has been great to learn. Probably why I didn’t think of using the rm command to remove the pdf.

Cheers

Tristan

[tristan_mason]

[QUOTE][u]Quote by: dead2sin[/u][p]

If you need any specific settings beyond that, let me know and I can tell you how to wrangle them 🙂

Nate[/p][/QUOTE]

Thanks Nate

My specific settings are as follows (sorry in advance if I have missed answers to these elsewhere…)

These are all System Prefs settings…
– Change the appearence from default ‘Blue” to “Graphite”
– “Hardware”, change the default video DVD app to something other than DVD Player (VLC of course…)
– Set the secondary mouse button to “right click”
– Suppress the Bluetooth menu bar icon
– Suppress the Time Machine menu bar icon
– Turn software Update off Airport
– Suppress Airport menu bar icon

Other
– Remove the “About Downloads” pdf

Regards

Tristan

[tristan_mason]

[QUOTE][u]Quote by: dead2sin[/u][p]There is a bug that prevents it from using the latest version at the moment. I don’t know of a way to pick a specific Install Disc to use when issuing the command. I’d imagine if you had different models, the easiest way about it would just be to copy vanilla and delete out the builds you don’t need. Yes, a bit tedious, but it would get the job done.

Nate[/p][/QUOTE]

Tedious but in the scheme of things what, 2 mins max? I’m failing to find too much issue. But then that’s just me… 😉

[tristan_mason]

[QUOTE][u]Quote by: dead2sin[/u][p]The Firefox CCK applies to ALL OSes. Extensions are OS-agnostic. We use this method for our windows images as well.

Nate[/p][/QUOTE]

Once again I used the Force and got CCK going. Guess what, it’s great! Very useable.

Thanks

Tristan

[tristan_mason]

[QUOTE][u]Quote by: dead2sin[/u][p][QUOTE][u]Quote by: tristan_mason[/u][p][QUOTE][u]Quote by: bw38[/u][p]You don’t necessarily have to package FireFox unless you’re looking to customize it. The DMG that contains FireFox will be accepted by instadmg. It already knows what to do with it.[/p][/QUOTE]

Yeah. I was having a custom home page set but i’ll just do the standard instal I think in the interests of a clean image. I’m working my way through the other bits of the catalog now to make sure nothing else was doing the same thing further down the line. Tedious but a requirement. I’m kinda getting the hang of things now after a solid months trial and error and am actually getting close to a decent final product.

Tris[/p][/QUOTE]

Use the CCK to customize firefox.[url] http://managingosx.wordpress.com/2010/07/02/more-firefox-customization/%5B/url%5D

And then you don’t touch the .dmg from mozilla’s website, just use it as is.

Nate[/p][/QUOTE]

hmmm… I went to the link and read the blurb and downloaded the .xpi file but i’m in the dark as to what platform it is for or how it works or how to install it. i’ll hopefully find time next week.

T

[tristan_mason]

Funny you mention the server issue Allister as there seem to be a few people here learning the hard way only to run instaDMG only on a client machine.

I must give thanks here to dead2sin for driving home the point that removing stuff from said afore mentioned folder/s WILL NOT break the software. It may however remove the “nice” setup you spent those few minutes creating for your end users. A carefully placed pkg of Plists in the right place will generally fix this though.

I’m off to re-make more pkg’s.

Ciao Ciao

Tristan

[tristan_mason]

(quick update…)

I’m about a third through my pkg’s and sure enough. if I remove any reference to the users and users/admin (add your folder name here) I have no issues with missing folders.

What a trap for young players! If I had have worked this out a few weeks ago it could have saved me some pain.

Hope this post will help others…

When creating pkg files of software you intend to use in your build train make sure you DO NOT include stuff from the Users folder in the package. If you want to keep custom settings for software use Plists etc and pop them in the User Template.

Cheers

Tristan

[tristan_mason]

After a little bit of fiddling i’m getting the feeling i need to go back and massage most of my generated pkg’s especially the Composer Diffs ones… oh the pain!

Tristan

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