[Casper] Computer Name is not populating when imaging

[Smith, William]

With the help of the folks at JAMF (thank you, Sam) I've created a simple
workaround to my problem.

The computer name is set by Casper at the end of imaging but before
rebooting to the imaged drive. At that point it is setting the Computer Name
and Hostname in:

    /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/preferences.plist

This preferences.plist file does not exist in an InstaDMG image. It is
created by the Apple Setup Assistant, which has never run. Without the
presence of this file Casper cannot set the names.

Our workaround is to package the preferences.plist file from an existing
machine and include it during the imaging process.

Copying the plist file from my MacBook Pro to a PowerMac MDD G4 leads me to
believe this should work for most machines but I haven't tested any further.

The preferences.plist file also includes your Network Locations settings,
which location is active and your active network interfaces. Be sure to set
these prior to packaging.

-- 

bill

William M. Smith, Technical Analyst
MCS IT
Merrill Communications, LLC
(651) 632-1492

On 11/11/08 4:37 PM, "Steve Wood" <swood at integerdallas.com> wrote:

> I am having the exact same problem and the good folks at JAMF are working on
> it.  So far we haven't been able to figure out why it is happening.
> 
> I have tried pushing just the image, without any extra apps or scripts, and
> I've tried it with the scripts and apps.  Both ways yield the same result.
> 
> To get around this, I've added to my post image script a piece that pulls
> the serial number of the machine and renames the machine to the serial
> number.  Not optimal, but it at least makes it easy to ID in ARD after
> imaging is done, and then I can go in and manually change it:
> 
> # rename computer to the serial number
> 
> NewName=`system_profiler | grep "Serial Number" | awk '{print $3}'`
> touch /$NewName
> #NewName='system_profiler SPHardwareDataType | grep Serial | awk '{print
> $3}''
> scutil --set ComputerName $NewName
> scutil --set LocalHostName $NewName
> scutil --set HostName $NewName
> 
> On 11/11/08 4:33 PM, "Smith, William" <william.smith at merrillcorp.com> wrote:
> 
>> Hi Folks!
>> 
>> I am testing InstaDMG as a means of creating our base Mac OS X 10.5 image.
>> Currently, I have it creating a fully patched 10.5.5 image and that image is
>> in both our production Casper 5.13 system as well as our testing Casper 6.01
>> system.
>> 
>> This 10.5.5 image is virgin until I install it with Casper. I am using a
>> combination of scripts and packages to add a local admin user, prevent the
>> setup assistant from appearing, set network preferences, time zone, etc.
>> 
>> When I image with either Casper 5.13 or Casper Imaging 6.01 I'm finding that
>> the Computer Name is not getting populated in the Sharing preference pane.
>> It is completely blank. If I click the Edit... button to view the Local
>> Hostname it shows "Macintosh.local" instead of "MachineName.local".
>> 
>> Has anyone seen this behavior before? I've searched both the Composer and
>> Casper mailing list archives but neither returned results for InstaDMG.