Delivering Locally


One of the simplest, most portable, and most flexible methods of local image delivery is through the use of a FireWire drive (Intel-based Macs can also boot over USB with the new formatting structure) as a startup disk. Just configure a portable FireWire (or USB, where applicable) drive with Mac OS X installed, as well as a copy of the disk image you wish to distribute and a utility to distribute the image, such as Apple Software Restore (ASR) or Disk Utility.

You may choose to place a script to initiate the delivery process in a conveniently accessible location on the FireWire drive. To deliver the image, simply start the computer with the FireWire drive and double-click the script. You can even create a script in the /Library/StartupItems folder that will allow users to start up the computer from the FireWire drive, walk away, and return when the delivery is complete. As the following figure shows, using a FireWire drive to deploy an image to a single computer is an easy and network-friendly method of one-to-one deployment.

Warning

If you create a script that is capable of delivering an image with little or no user interaction, use it with extreme caution. Starting up the wrong computer with the delivery FireWire drive may result in a loss of data.


Note

Intel-based Macs must boot from drives with a GUID Partition Table (GPT), and PowerPC-based Macs must boot from drives with an Apple Partition Map. As a result, you may not currently use the same disk drive to boot both Intel and PowerPC-based Macs.


Using ASR

ASR, which is described in Lesson 2, "Creating and Using Disk Images," is a native Mac OS X application that efficiently copies disk images onto volumes. With an ASR-ready disk image, you can use the command-line tool asr to distribute your image. As shown in the following figure, ASR can be used to push many disk images to many computers or one disk image to several computers.

After starting the computer from the FireWire drive, enter the following syntax at the command line or from a UNIX script:

 sudo asr -source sourceimage -target targetvolume [options]


where sourceimage is the path to your master image and targetvolume is the path to the local startup volume for the computer. The optional [options] parameter can be any number of options available to asr as described in the asr manual page. In this example,

 sudo asr -source /Users/Shared/master.dmg -target /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/ -erase


the -erase option is used, indicating that asr should erase the target volume and perform a fast block copy. By default, without the -erase option, asr will perform a restore in place, which is slower. Type man asr on the command line for details on this option, on block-copy restores versus file-copy restores, and on other features.

Using Disk Utility

Some administrators prefer to use Disk Utility because it has a graphical user interface with drag-and-drop support, and because, unlike ASR, it offers less chance of deleting and imaging a drive unintentionally. As the following figure shows, Disk Utility is a simple, GUI-based version of ASR, so it does not offer a few advanced options that come with ASR.

To deliver an image using Disk Utility, follow these steps:

1.

Start the computer from the FireWire drive. Alternatively, if you have the images stored on a portable computer, you can boot the target computer in target disk mode and connect it to the portable computer as a FireWire drive.

2.

Open Disk Utility.

3.

Click the computer's hard-drive icon on the left.

4.

Click the Restore tab, as shown in the following figure.

5.

Click and drag the master image into the Source field.

6.

Click and drag the target-volume icon into the Destination field.

7.

Select Erase Destination for a fast block copy, or leave it unselected for a restore in place.

8.

Click Restore.

Tip

You might find it helpful to set Disk Utility to launch at login.


Using a Bootable DVD

Using a CD or DVD to deliver your image has a few advantages over using a FireWire drive. Though not as flexible or easy to set up, optical media discs are inexpensive and can be easily mass produced. Because they are read-only, they also reduce the possibility of corruption or accidental modification.

Due to limited storage size, it is not likely that your master image will fit on a CD, and with a complex modern operating system like Mac OS X v10.4, it is extremely difficult to create a CD capable of starting your computer. DVDs have greater storage capacity, and so they are much more practical. As shown in the following figure, putting the disk image on a bootable DVD allows for a more inexpensive mass deployment solution than that of FireWire drives, but without the ability to update the images without creating new DVDs.

To create a bootable DVD, configure a model and create an install image in System Image Utility (as you would to create NetBoot or Network Install images). Instead of saving the image to your NetBoot storage folder, save the image to a folder in your home folder. Then use the Finder or Disk Utility to burn a DVD of that image. Although Disk Utility can be used to create bootable DVDs, System Image Utility allows you to easily configure a stripped-down version of Mac OS X as the startup volume on the DVD.




Apple Training Series(c) Mac OS X v10. 4 System Administration Reference
Apple Training Series: Mac OS X v10.4 System Administration Reference, Volume 2
ISBN: 0321423151
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2006
Pages: 128

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