deploy new image to 500 new macs?

wesley

wesley

wesley

Soldato
Joined
29 Jul 2003
Posts
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hi guys

we are getting about 500 new macs coming this summer. whats the best and quickest way to deploy a new image to all 500 macs?

all will be based on 1 single image

i've done WDS, MDT toolkit and SCCM on 1000+ PC's but this macs deployment is new to me and i'm up for the challenge

big job and am looking forward to it

any software you'd recommend to have alook, preferring free for education.

cheers
 
i think i should add more informations

we dont have any os x server. all macs will be standalone workstation connecting to network via DHCP.

so we want something to boot up the mac via USB or CD and download the new image from windows shared folder. is it possible?
 
I'm pretty sure you could create an image of the drive, put that on your network then boot the Mac whilst holding Command key and the R key to put it in to recovery mode and select the option to restore from a disk image (and browse to your network share). Here's a guide to using disk utility: http://mac.appstorm.net/how-to/os-x/creating-disk-images-with-disk-utility/

There's also CarbonCopyCloner which allows backup from network shares.

http://www.bombich.com/ccc_features.html

No sure how well each solution would work for simultaneous image restores of multiple machines.
 
You could set one of the Macs up as a server temporarily.

What is on the image? Accounts/Software/etc?

The workflow might be something like:

-setup one Mac how you want it, including accounts and software.

-create a NetRestore image from this via TargetDisk Mode. Using another Mac as the host server

-image all other Macs via net boot over the network.


Read up on OS X Server, you can download the app on any Mac.
 
thanks guys for information.

we have a large netapp storage and its very very fast and would like to use it to share the image on shared folder.

never knew about the disk utility could make/restore image from a network shared folder. will look into it later

shiver, is targetdisk mode in the disk utility?

the image will have 2 simple =account, administrator and student (limited account)

CS5, quark,, office 2013 and many others
 
I assume this is a school or college?

Speaking from experience (I deployed around 120 Mac's to a school a few years back) you'll really want an OSX Server. It'll be a complete nightmare without and will cause you untold problems in the future.

Buy 495 Macs and a Server.
 
college

lol i dont make the decision. top management made the final decision!

no osx server sorry and all macs will be standalone workstation.
 
i dont have the power to buy a software, it'll have to go to finance department, it'll take a while and most likely it'll be no

let forget the osx server for now. we currently have over 500 macs at the moment, without an osx server in last 5 years without any major problems.
 
If you have budget for 500 Macs and you're in education then you can afford Casper Suite. It will do your job for you, as well as giving you complete control over each machine, like Group Policy does.
 
This is what we did for a college, deploying to 2500 Macs:

Get a dedicated machine and install Mavericks, buy MacOSX Server for a few quid on the app store.
Download and install DeployStudio.
Build a netboot image using DeployStudio, make it live within OSX Server app.
Take an image of a machine you've prepared as your 'gold' build, with all software installed, etc.
Create a workflow in DeployStudio with the settings you require. We had a prompt for the machines to be named and added to AD, thats it.
Enable multicast on your network switches (turn off multicast flood protection, etc) and ensure multicast is enabled in your workflow.
Deploy.
 
Another vote for deploystudio.

It requires DHCP/BootIP netboot and a repository (can be AFP, NFS, >SMB2).
You then netboot your gold image mac and capture an image up to repository.
Then you create a workflow to bust it out on the machines.

Now, I use mac servers for netboot service, but I think deploy studio can enable it on Mac OS X client without the Server.app GUI.

If you need any help send me a PM - I work in education and image macs daily.
 
Last edited:
wesley said:
i dont have the power to buy a software, it'll have to go to finance department, it'll take a while and most likely it'll be no

let forget the osx server for now. we currently have over 500 macs at the moment, without an osx server in last 5 years without any major problems.
Click to expand...

Isn't OSX server (software) only like £30 on the Mac App Store these days. Surely you could just install that on one central admin Mac and use that to deploy to the rest of the machines?
 
I can vouch for deploystudio. I've just spent the weekend knocking up a proof of concept on a mac mini I installed VMware ESXi on. OS X is deployed via deploystudio and autoenrolled and managed by Profile Manager which is a part of OS X server.

Drop me a message if you need any help if you go down this route.
 
SCCM 2012 R2, does not support OS X deployment.

Another vote here for deploy studio, but if you guys a windows techs, SCCM can be used to push out packages after, it sees macs as mobile devices and it is pretty niffy at it too (can't believe I just said that), you can use certify to manage the macs via Group Policy.
 
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