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juusan · Jul 28, 2008, 11:51 AM

When I supported PCs, I used Norton's Ghost for imaging new machines. I'm about to be supporting a small all Mac shop, and they want me to set up a system much like Ghost. What's out there as far as Mac imaging packages? Right now it's a shop of ~80 folks, but the company is growing and an imaging solution is going to be handy. What do you folks use for quickly deploying new machines?

ibook_steve · Jul 28, 2008, 12:20 PM

It's right there in your Utilities folder: Disk Utility to make .dmg.

Steve

juusan · Jul 28, 2008, 12:37 PM

I need something where I can quickly deploy machines en mass, though.

besson3c · Jul 28, 2008, 01:13 PM

If it were me I'd enable SSH on each of the Macs and deploy using ClusterSSH.

selasley · Jul 28, 2008, 05:43 PM

You might want to try NetRestore http://www.bombich.com/software/netrestore.html. I've never used it, but it gets good reviews on MacUpdate and VersionTracker.

juusan · Jul 28, 2008, 05:52 PM

Anyone used products such as Retrospect or SuperDuper? That last one's name is kind of annoying.

jmiddel · Jul 28, 2008, 09:22 PM

I use Super Duper and find it excellent. Yeah, the name is tad snooty, but it's still a great product.

OreoCookie · Jul 29, 2008, 04:55 AM

Originally Posted by juusan

I need something where I can quickly deploy machines en mass, though.

As was said before, you can use Disk Utility for just that, there is a Restore function built into Disk Utility. So you pop in the install DVD, launch Disk Utility and restore from, say, an external harddrive that stores your Disk Image.

Retrospect is a backup software and not really suited for this task. And while you could use SuperDuper, you don't need it for what you have in mind.

olePigeon · Jul 29, 2008, 05:23 PM

Assuming you're in a Mac-only environment, there are two products you should get. One is NetRestore, as already mentioned by selaslay. This is the product I use to support 300+ Macs. Best of all, it's free.

It's straight forward. This process requires Mac OS X Server to host the image. You use NetRestore Helper and make a "master" image of the computer you want to clone to the others. Then use NetRestore and create a NetBoot set. Mount the NetBoot image and open the NetRestore app on the image and create a new configuration. Set the IP, share directory (location of the shared folder/drive containing the image), and the login & password to the account that will mount the share drive.

On the client machines, you just turn the computers on while holding down the 'N' key and wait for the World icon to pop up. The client machine will netboot off the server and you'll see the NetRestore interface. Select your configuration, select the destination, then image away.

The second application you should probably use is SuperDuper. It's shareware/upgradeware. You don't have to buy it, but it has some extra features if you register it. I use SuperDuper for the one-off computer, computers in remote locations, or computers not on the network. It'll image a computer in only a few minutes over Firewire 800 and it doesn't require a network or server. Very useful. Extremely simple and intuitive interface, not explanation is needed.

Now, if you're in a mixed PC/Mac environment, both Altiris and LANdesk will image Macs through ASR on OS X. You have to have a Mac OS X Server set up with NetBoot and the appropriate images. This is a little more complicated to set up, but it does keep all your PC's & Mac's management, patching, software, imaging, and licensing under a single application.

olePigeon · Jul 29, 2008, 05:31 PM

I forgot to mention the best part about supporting Macs over PCs, you only need one image. As long as you build the master image on the newest model Mac (desktop or laptop), that same image will install on any supported previous generation Mac of the same architecture (desktop or laptop, doesn't matter.) So if you build an image for a Quad G5, that image will deploy to any other previous PowerPC Mac that's supported. Likewise, if you build an image on an 8-core MacPro, that image can just as easily be deployed to a MacBook laptop.

You don't have to maintain a driver database or worry about Hardware Protection Faults like with Windows.

Art Vandelay · Jul 30, 2008, 12:27 PM

If you're using Leopard, you just need one image for all your Macs. You don't need a PPC image and an Intel image with Leopard.

pinktanku · Jul 31, 2008, 03:37 AM

My school used to boot from firewire mac disks with the image in and restore

Nivag · Jul 31, 2008, 04:12 AM

I was looking to use this for one of the companies I look after.

http://www.jamfsoftware.com/products/casper_suite.php

Just waiting for a time to view a company that is already using it to see how well it works.

olePigeon · Jul 31, 2008, 11:40 AM

Originally Posted by Nivag

I was looking to use this for one of the companies I look after.

http://www.jamfsoftware.com/products/casper_suite.php

Just waiting for a time to view a company that is already using it to see how well it works.

Man, if I had that program when I was working at the college I'd 've been in heaven. The CS3 packaging alone was worth it. Adobe utilizes the worst installers. For the life of us (and Adobe's engineers) we couldn't figure out why CS2 Enterprise needed root access to install... then rebooted and logged itself in as root! Adobe just said, "Oops, we fixed that. We'll send you new media discs." So we get the new media discs where the installer couldn't read its own installer files. "Oops, we fixed that. We'll send you new media discs."

Now, if that company really wanted to impress me, they'd work in a way to manage Office Updates and HP printer drivers. Both Microsoft and HP use Installer VISE instead of Package Maker to make life as difficult as possible.

They don't have any trouble using .msi on Windows.