Casper 7 will do block copy if you "Compile" your configuration. If all you want in your configuration is your OS image, then that's all that needs to be there. But why not take advantage of Casper and have it push your basic applications along with the OS?<br clear="all">
<br>Steve Wood<br>Director of IT<br><a href="mailto:swood@integer.com">swood@integer.com</a> <br><br>The Integer Group | 1999 Bryan St. | Ste. 1700 | Dallas, TX 75201 <br>T 214.758.6813 | F 214.758.6901 | C 940.312.2475 <br>
<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Oct 2, 2009 at 4:26 PM, Smith, William <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:William.Smith@merrillcorp.com">William.Smith@merrillcorp.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div class="im">On 10/2/09 3:58 PM, "don montalvo" <<a href="mailto:donmontalvo@gmail.com">donmontalvo@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br>
<br>
> "Smith, William" <<a href="mailto:William.Smith@merrillcorp.com">William.Smith@merrillcorp.com</a>> wrote:<br>
><br>
</div><div class="im">>> With Casper 7.0, you no longer need a "base image".<br>
>><br>
>> A la InstaDMG, Casper Admin 7.0 can take a .dmg image of a Mac OS X<br>
>> 10 DVD and use that as your single source for all base OS installs.<br>
>> You can then create multiple custom configurations in just a couple<br>
>> of minutes.<br>
><br>
> That sounds great, but if Casper Imaging is using a Mac OS X 10 DVD<br>
> image to reimage, it sounds like how NetInstall can do installer based<br>
> (slower file copy, flexible) versus ASR based (faster block copy, less<br>
> flexible). Is there a way to combine the two by doing block copy for a<br>
> base image and then have the process run selected pkg installers for<br>
> the rest of the required stuff?<br>
<br>
</div>The base Mac OS X software is installed using block copy if you create a<br>
package. :-) But then you don't get the flexibility of multiple<br>
configurations for one package file. :-(<br>
<div class="im"><br>
> I'm trying to get my head around how a large deployment would be<br>
> handled by Casper. Let's say you have a large firm with 1000 Macs<br>
> spread across different regions/countries. You're told to reimage 100<br>
> of them (upgrade them from Tiger to Leopard). Using the installer<br>
> deployment method you mentioned above, what are the chances of getting<br>
> these boxes reimaged in short time?<br>
<br>
</div>That all depends on whether or not your infrastructure is set up to do this.<br>
If all your Macs have a Restore partition then you can boot to them and pull<br>
packages from a local file server repository. Length of time depends on the<br>
model of Macs you have, network speed and amount of shtuff to install. This,<br>
of course, is also impacted by the amount of time you have to get this done.<br>
<br>
If all machines will get the exact same software then you can use Casper<br>
Admin to take a configuration of packages and create a monolithic image that<br>
you can then install using block copy.<br>
<div class="im"><br>
> Can Casper handle reimaging computers without touching the /Users<br>
> directory? Let's say you have 100 computers that need to be upgraded<br>
> from 10.4 to 10.5. They're spread across different subnets, and each<br>
> of them have 100G in /Users that we need to protect. Can Casper<br>
> Imaging do a reimage in place? Can the imaging process "trickle" the<br>
> image down to the box - then trigger reimaging while preserving /Users<br>
> data?<br>
<br>
</div>Again, depends on whether or not you've set up your systems to enable this.<br>
JAMF suggests that you create a separate partition for User folders if you<br>
want to do this.<br>
<br>
Casper cannot trickle, however, it can cache files for a later install time.<br>
It cannot do this with the Mac OS itself but it can do this with updates.<br>
You'll want to either set the updates to occur overnight when no one is<br>
using the computers or at login/logout, when you know no apps are running.<br>
<div class="im"><br>
--<br>
<br>
William Smith<br>
Technical Analyst<br>
Merrill Communications LLC<br>
(651) 632-1492<br>
<br>
_______________________________________________<br>
</div><div><div></div><div class="h5">Casper mailing list<br>
<a href="mailto:Casper@list.jamfsoftware.com">Casper@list.jamfsoftware.com</a><br>
<a href="http://list.jamfsoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/casper" target="_blank">http://list.jamfsoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/casper</a><br>
</div></div></blockquote></div><br>