[Casper] Computer Name is not populating when imaging

[Miles Leacy]

I'm testing with the InstaDMG method too, in order to create the base OS
image to be used by Casper.
William described it pretty well.  On the whole, it's intended to image a
complete system for end user deployment, but if you leave out the custom
software packages, you can use it quite well to generate a base image.

InstaDMG consists of a folder structure into which packages (and scripts
encapsulated in payload-free packages), an image of an OS installer disk,
and a script that assembles these pieces into a bootable image.

It installs the OS into an empty dmg file.  Then installs the indicated
packages into that same DMG file, finally prepping the dmg for asr.  It's
actually pretty similar to the manual assembly of scripts I was using for
deployment before I found Casper.

The benefits are a never-booted, customized, updated image.  By installing
onto a target machine, tweaking that machine and then imaging with Composer
or some other disk imaging tool, you end up with user accounts (which you
can still add via the InstaDMG workflow or via Casper) and their associated
home folders, logs, caches, etc.  I haven't done enough testing, but it is
my assumption that an InstaDMG image that was created with the latest OS X
combo updater ought to boot any Apple-supported system that isn't newer than
the combo updater.

The core methodologies of InstaDMG and Casper are very compatible, which is
one of the things that drew me to it.

There are materials and a discussion board for InstaDMG on afp548.com.  Josh
Wisenbaker's held a webcast in April that explains the methodology and
benefits in detail.  I'm not sure if afp548 have an archive of it, but if
you have access to Apple Sales Web, you can download the webcast archive via
iTunes.


2008/11/12 Ernst, Craig S. <ERNSTCS at uwec.edu>

>  I don't think it was too long...very similar to how my responses get
> sometimes. =)
>
> And I can agree that perhaps it is a good topic for a CUG, but I wanted to
> bring it up here as well because I think this is the perfect venue to share
> this information and what it was intended for. It helps educate us all on
> making the right decisions and using the right tools.
>
> I assume that you still need to build this virgin image on the latest
> hardware? I don't have to make new OS images often so I've never really
> tried to improve the process.
>
> When I tried to download InstaDMG from Sourceforge it wasn't available...=/
>
> Thanks, Bill!
>
> Craig E
>
>
> On 11/11/08 6:13 PM, "Smith, William" <william.smith at merrillcorp.com>
> wrote:
>
> Sorry for the long answer. I hope that explains it well.
>
> [This would actually make for a great Casper User Group topic.]
>
>
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>
>
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