[walt]

The firmware updates have to be installed on the systems when they are running (imaged). The best practice for this would be either to not include firmware updates in the image, and just apply them afterwards manually, or if you have the exact same model of Mac and they all need the update you could potentially install the firmware update packages to include them on the image, but you would still need to run them manually on each workstation.

[walt]

Okay so I successfully got the iLife Support 9.0.3 Update to apply by pulling the two package inside of it and installing them. I also installed iLife 09 on the same image and the update was still applied successfully. Basically you just need these two files (you can extract them with Flat Package Editor) from inside the iLife Support 9.03:

iLifeMediaBrowser_203.pkg
iLifeSlideshow_103.pkg

When you install the update normally these packages that are referenced in the /Library/Receipts/boms directory.

[walt]

I am applying Safari updates without a problem. As for the iLife 9.0.3 Support, if you open the package with Flat Package Editor there are two packages inside of it. I haven’t tried but it may work to just pull these out and install them separately. I will try it and post back with an update.

[url]http://i29.tinypic.com/oghv6u.png[/url]

[walt]

I had the same issue when users would be authenticated from AD and tried to mount a cifs share they would be prompted for their username and password. I had to change a preference to get Finder to mount shares using the user’s short name so that it would correctly pass their username to the server. Otherwise it would authenticate with ‘Doe, John’ as opposed to ‘john.doe’.

Here are the commands to get it done.

defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.NetworkAuthorization UseDefaultName -bool NO
defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.NetworkAuthorization UseShortName -bool YES

I am not sure if this will resolve the issue with the proxy.

Also just FYI, the AD plugin on OS X uses Kerberos to authenticate with AD. So every time a user logs in with their AD account they are granted a kerberos ticket from your AD. This ticket is valid for a few hours (by default anyway) and any other services that our connected to your AD (cifs shares for expample) should allow your users to use single-sign on via kerberos.

/System/Library/CoreServices/Kerberos – This application will let you see if you have any tickets active or manually obtain a ticket.

[walt]

I just had someone at work get one of the new 13-inch Macbook Pro’s and realized after imaging that the audio didn’t work. I checked the discs that came with it and it came with 10.5.7, so I took the first disc and created a .dmg of it and replaced the 10.5.6 retail .dmg I was using to build my images. It worked on the new machine and also older machines still worked fine with the same new image. I would recommend not using the second-disc as a part of the Base OS install. For two reasons, one because I am not sure how :P, and two because you really want to separate the iLife installation (or any other extra apps) from the Base OS so that you can customize your images with more precision/ease. For example, if you wanted to build another image that didn’t have iLife, then you would have to go back and reinstall the Base OS and create a new cached image using the retail 10.5.x disc.

Also the discs that come bundled with new macs use to install trial versions of iWork and stuff like that which you don’t want (I am not sure if they still do). I would just install using the .dmg of the first disc and pull the iLife package out of the disc and install it as a package separately.

[walt]

The idea of having checkpoints sounds awesome. Thanks for all your great/hard work btw. And good luck on the job search!

[walt]

Not that I know of, but it isn’t a bad idea. I could put some of mine on my website I suppose. It does save you the time of running a checksum on the packages, and figuring out which updates need to be installed after an installation. It makes sense I guess for Apple OS and Application updates. I will update once I put some up.

[walt]

I have a 10.5 update catalog file but I am building from a 10.5.7 disc that comes with the new Macs, so if you are using a retail (10.5.6) disc it won’t be much use.

I pulled the .pkg files from the .dmg files I got from Apple and then used the checksum utility that comes with InstaUp2Date.

[walt]

Well building the image from Scratch is kind of the point. But if you mean is it possible to cache the image later in the build, rather that immediately after the base OS installed that is theoretically possible but it would have to be integrated into InstaDMG.

Another thing is that building the image in this modular fashion and keeping the Base OS separate from the rest of the installations (even though it does take alot of time) keeps your image “clean” and also prevents mistakes in the image.

[walt]

Here is iLife 09:

iLife ’09 iLife ’09.mpkg sha1:2c6ad61909a0be1a077f2a1ae7c84c67c8d547d1
GarageBand501 GarageBand501.pkg sha1:794f8689e27d69d32ed5cc5d27eea0c942487ab4
iLifeSlideshow_102 iLifeSlideshow_102.pkg sha1:59b3f33db6e73b7115638921a103c2ce1437200d
iMovie_802 iMovie_802.pkg sha1:10b3acda22bafdc6ed77269c41c5d9de10430393
iPhoto_802 iPhoto_802.pkg sha1:557b37b94ebe9631b8bd60d38a4770e1d8b70ad3
iWeb_301 iWeb_301.pkg sha1:3a39ef433a3b8570f7e8a0cad4c5a3b530cfd610
iLifeMediaBrowser_202 iLifeMediaBrowser_202.pkg sha1:513a197c8459a226a7f5d5d216524bcdbb606f73
iMovie_803 iMovie_803.pkg sha1:1bfcbbe20cdcc8a5683cff92ab32c963b62441f0
iPhoto_803 iPhoto_803.pkg sha1:5568367663c9f585d9885f4414300e4c7159cd5e
RAWCameraUpdate RAWCameraUpdate.pkg sha1:5e4b32c0051a6a4edbc2f5c804220a3fe70dee1b
iPhoto_804 iPhoto_804.pkg sha1:da1262452a802ea453d982538aafb7e8f8ef4657
iDVD_704 iDVD_704.pkg sha1:eaaeffd884b1d5c8725be081d23b4abcc1685d86
GarageBand502 GarageBand502.pkg sha1:5801608f8e24fb58b96501a722fa9368fe2aa689

And here is iLife 08′

iLife ’08 iLife ’08.mpkg sha1:26f6fab27f7a1e4aaf28e01b05d49ca9b1def097
GarageBand_411 GarageBand_411.pkg sha1:696f298dd297df19d63a57ed9e0bbee540713cb4
iPhoto_710 iPhoto_710.pkg sha1:dee0dba5f6c0873c8858cd4307422818cefbb29b
iWeb_203 iWeb_203.pkg sha1:34f91d95cb4f127adc0f5f91c4dc3652339039c7
iMovie_710 iMovie_710.pkg sha1:00764c32ff5d5b9f872029acef84ac2b20fa326b
iDVD_703 iDVD_703.pkg sha1:ca690145cf46dc4fcb3e4a0153ccd500d1812ca7
GarageBand_412 GarageBand_412.pkg sha1:ece328b42a06e724ee1b46fa6f07315418332a9c
iPhoto_714 iPhoto_714.pkg sha1:95170f7cffcc919df95a146833081a3a222ee77d
iWeb_204 iWeb_204.pkg sha1:eac954961b9ca3ecea1ddc32c0639103339df007
iMovie_714 iMovie_714.pkg sha1:71ca451715dffbe99a0d7f59bed4f11978b05cf0
iPhoto_715 iPhoto_715.pkg sha1:211a6e35526d813a8331f0e758636e70644d6a22
iDVD_704 iDVD_704.pkg sha1:eaaeffd884b1d5c8725be081d23b4abcc1685d86
iLifeSupport903 iLifeSupport903.pkg sha1:bb07cf3f0bb05808c528e1decdda3a6824f3f44f
RAWCameraUpdate RAWCameraUpdate.pkg sha1:5e4b32c0051a6a4edbc2f5c804220a3fe70dee1b

[walt]

Yeah I would guess that is why Bombich took down NetRestore from his site. Apple probably had planned to use his software at some point it just took a while before they decided the time/software was right. I am excited, I hope that some new features have been implemented into NetRestore in 10.6 server. Specifically being able to easiy do some tasks like Directory binding etc.

[quote]
From: http://www.apple.com/server/macosx/features/client-management.html:
System imaging.
System Image Utility leverages the power of Automator, giving you an intuitive interface for creating NetBoot, NetInstall, and NetRestore disk images. Choose from a preloaded library of actions that allows you to specify settings, additional software packages, and installation procedures — then save them as a workflow that builds the installation image.
[/quote]
Could this be an InstaDMG-esque solution? Sounds promising…

[walt]

If you are talking about the OS installed languages you can do this with an InstallerChoices.xml file inside of your /InstaDMG/InstallerFiles/BaseOS/ folder.

e.g. to only install the OS without languages or printers etc. your xml file would look like this:

[code]

PrinterDriversGroup
AdditionalFonts
LanguageTranslations
X11

[/code]

[walt]

Here are my scripts. One is the postflight script that is run during the InstaDMG creation process that creates the Launchd item and installs the script. The other is the script that runs on startup. I created these after getting lots of good info and tips from these forums 🙂 Feel free to modify them.

Postflight script that installs the script and the Launchd item:
[code]
#!/bin/sh

# Install startup settings Launchd item and corresponding script.

# Script by Walter Meyer

# Declare ‘defaults’and ‘PlistBuddy’.

defaults=”/usr/bin/defaults”
PlistBuddy=”/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy”

# Define directory variables.

PKG_DIR=”$1/Contents/Resources”
SCRIPTS_DIR=”$3/Library/Scripts”
LAUNCHD_DIR=”$3/Library/LaunchDaemons”

# Create scripts directory.

mkdir “${SCRIPTS_DIR}”

# Copy startupssettings.sh script to the scripts directory.

cp “${PKG_DIR}/startupsettings.sh” “${SCRIPTS_DIR}”

# Install Launchd item to /Library/LaunchDaemons. Change com.yourcompany.startupsettings to your orginization.

$defaults write “${LAUNCHD_DIR}/com.yourcompany.startupsettings” Label com.yourcompany.startupsettings
$defaults write “${LAUNCHD_DIR}/com.yourcompany.startupsettings” ProgramArguments -array
$PlistBuddy -c “Add :ProgramArguments:Item\ 1 string /Library/Scripts/startupsettings.sh” “${LAUNCHD_DIR}/com.yourcompany.startupsettings.plist”
$defaults write “${LAUNCHD_DIR}/com.yourcompany.startupsettings” RunAtLoad -bool YES

# Give Launchd item correct permissions.

chown root:wheel “${LAUNCHD_DIR}/com.yourcompany.startupsettings.plist”
chmod 644 “${LAUNCHD_DIR}/com.yourcompany.startupsettings.plist”

exit 0

[/code]

StartupSettings.sh script:
[code]
#!/bin/sh

# System startup script that should be a Launchd startup script, that deletes itself and the launchd item after completion.
# This script turns on NTP and sets NTP server. Also sets Time Zone. Enables ARD and SSH.

# Define ‘kickstart’ and ‘systemsetup’ variables, built in OS X script that activates and sets options for ARD.

# Script by Walter Meyer

kickstart=”/System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/Resources/kickstart”
systemsetup=”/usr/sbin/systemsetup”

#### Begin ARD Configuration ####

# Set options and activate ARD for only our admin user with all privelages. Turn on VNC and set password to yoursupersecurepasswordhere.

# First we have to define specified users with ARD privelages in a separate command. Replace youradminusehere wih your Administrators short-name. More options for kickstart can be found here: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2370

$kickstart -configure -users youradminuserhere -access -on -privs -all

# The next command configures the other ARD options.

$kickstart -activate -configure -allowAccessFor -specifiedUsers -clientopts -setmenuextra -menuextra yes -setvnclegacy -vnclegacy yes -setvncpw -vncpw yoursupersecurepasswordhere

#### End ARD Configuration ####

#### Begin Time and Network Services Configuration ####

# Replace ‘America/New_York’ with your time zone. To list time zones in terminal run: sysemsetup -listtimezones. Set your time server by replacing some.timeserver.here.

$systemsetup -settimezone America/New_York -setusingnetworktime on -setnetworktimeserver some.timeserver.here

# Activate WakeOnLAN.

$systemsetup -setwakeonnetworkaccess on

# Activate SSH.

$systemsetup -setremotelogin on

#### End Time and Network Services Configuration ####

# Delete the script and the launchd item.

rm /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.yourcompany.startupsettings.plist

srm “$0”
[/code]

[walt]

If these scripts are being run as first boot scripts it is much easier imho to use the systemsetup command to configure things like NTP or SSH. As opposed to writing scripts that rely on creating symbolic links to the appropriate Time Zone or editing plist files. The command is easy to use and will accomplish setting NTP settings. I will post up my first boot script once I get back to my work computer. In the meantime read about the command here:

[url]http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Darwin/Reference/Manpages/man8/systemsetup.8.html[/url]\

Also, as Patrick mentioned above, systemsetup can’t be run on on a volume you aren’t booted off of. But if you are writing scripts to run on first boot anyway the systemsetup command is much easier to use and requires less code.

[walt]

I used the LanRev application to make a CS4 package and it worked well. When snapshotting there are a number of things that could potentially cause your snapshot to be inaccurate or be problematic when installing etc. What I did was install CS4 on a clean install of Leopard (10.5.7 not that it matters) and took a snapshot with LanRev. I then took the Iceberg package and removed some things that weren’t needed, such as the files it installed into my local User’s directory. I did keep what it installed into /Users/Shared. As long as you are only installing CS4 and not doing anything else your snapshot shouldn’t need any modification when you bring it into Iceberg besided what it installs into your User’s folder(s) besides ‘Shared’.

I started the snapshot as soon as I hit ‘Install’. Before you start the Installation and the Snapshot you should have input the serial number so you shouldn’t encounter any licensing issues, if you are are you sure you are not having a licensing problem even when you are not installing CS4 from your custom.pkg? Once you open the Iceberg project hit Command-B and build it and it should be fine.

[Author]

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