[Casper] Netboot newbie

[Ernst, Craig S.]

Just a note about using the Casper Netboot pieces until the next release comes out:

"I have verified a bug in 6.0 and 6.01 in which a policy (and therefore Casper Remote) are not properly setting a specified netboot server.  The bug appears to occur in the translation process between the XML that the JAMF binary receives from the JSS into a command to be run.  The "jamf bless" command works correctly to set a netboot server, so you can still configure a script that will set a machine to a specified NetBoot server as a workaround.  (See 'jamf help bless')."

I always kept getting my default server.

Craig E


On 11/3/08 9:24 AM, "Miles Leacy" <miles.leacy at themacadmin.com> wrote:

Note that you can specify netboot servers, and even specific images through the JSS.  See Casper Suite documentation, pages 328-331.

You don't need to do anything special with routers if you specify where to netboot from.  Its only in the default netboot situation where a netbooting computer broadcasts to the network looking for a netboot server where you run into routing issues.

You can use the bless command to specify your netboot server and/or image.


2008/11/3 James Partridge <james.partridge at oucs.ox.ac.uk>
On 3 Nov 2008, at 01:14, Jim Oring, Jr. wrote:

I'm in the process of experimemting with netbooting and am very
interested in what others are doing to make this a seemless process.

One important thing to keep in mind is the steps you need to take if you are going to be NetBooting across subnets. Mike Bombich (as usual) has written the definitive descriptions of the whole NetBoot process, and things to watch out for):

Troubleshooting the NetBoot process: <http://www.bombich.com/mactips/netboot.html>
NetBooting across subnets: <http://www.bombich.com/mactips/nbas.html>

The key step is for whoever administers your network hardware to make sure that routers on any subnets that will have machines NetBooting can pass BSDP traffic. If this works then everything else follows pretty easily.

I'd also recommend looking into a good administrative method for managing which machines are allowed to NetBoot and which aren't. Apple's MAC address filtering is the right thing to do (imo) but the interface for managing MAC addresses in Server Admin is, well, a bit rubbish really. If you have a large number or a high turnover of machines allowed to NetBoot then it's really easy to lose control of the MAC address filter.

In general, though, I'd say read those two articles by Mike Bombich. I've never seen anything better for understanding the NetBoot process. If you are NetBooting both PPC and Intel machines then pay close attention to the sections about NetBooting multiple architectures.

Cheers

James



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

James Partridge

Systems Development & Support (Apple)

NSMS

Oxford University Computing Service

13 Banbury Road

Oxford OX2 6NN



Tel.: (01865) 273207

iChat: james.partridge at mac.com









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