Don’t let the theft of the Paternoville sign fool ya’, State College is as safe as ever. That is, until a bunch of Mac guys descend on the Nittany Lion Shrine. Yes, it’s that time of the year again when Mac guys from around the world (and yes, all of the speakers are male) descend upon Pennsylvania State University from throughout the Big 10 and beyond to discuss the Penn State mascot, the Nittany Lion. Actually, it’s a mountain lion, so we can’t discuss it quite yet at that point, but we can talk about a slightly bigger cat: Lion. Lion deployment, scripted tools, Munki, InstaDMG, Puppet, migrations, “postPC,” PSU…
-
-
Use ARD to Restart to NetBoot Server
It’s summer! And at many schools that means that the kids are gone and it’s time to start imaging again. And imaging means a lot of rebooting holding down the N key. But wait, you have ARD access into all those computers. And you have automated imaging tools. This means you can image the whole school from the comfort of your cabin out by the lake. Just use ARD and a little automation and you’ll be fishing in no time! If you haven’t used the bless command to restart a client to NetBoot server then you’re missing out. The bless command is used to set the boot drive that a…
-
DHCP Leases Expanded
DHCP provides IP addresses to clients. DHCP is critical to a number of Mac OS X Server technologies, most notably with NetBoot. In doing so, communications are comprised of 4 steps: Discovery, Offer, Acceptance, and Acknowledgment. In the Discovery step, a computer that needs an IP address sends a broadcast request to the environment. These typically remain local, although most routers will allow for configuring the gateway in such a way that UDP traffic is forwarded on to other subnets. The request also includes all of the options that the client will need, with options being anything beyond an IP address, each potential option with a numerical identifier per this…
-
Bootp Relaying & Troubleshooting NetBoot
I’ve seen a couple of posts on groups recently with people asking why they’re unable to NetBoot clients. Personally, I always verify that clients are able to obtain a DHCP lease and that the NetBoot server shows up in the Startup Disk System Preference pane. Provided those two things work then you will usually be able to NetBoot. Both of these can be verified when booted from an installer or an installed system (checking both never hurt anyone). Next, break out your crossover cable (well, many a Mac doesn’t need one any more). If you can NetBoot when connected directly to a server then you’re usually looking at an infrastructure…