Netboot Problems

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iamdigitalman's picture
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Joined: Mar 1 2004 - 22:18
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Netboot Problems

ok, so my tiger DVD is failing. Luckiy, when I bought it, I imaged it first thing. Unfortunantly, I don't have a DVD burner, so I can not simply burn it to a new DVD. So, I looked into this netboot thing, and it seems pretty cool. So, I downloaded the server tools from apple's website, and created a netboot image with the System Image Utility.

Upon completion, I looked it up, and found a PDF here. It said to launch server admin, so I did. I then got a drop down asking for my password. when I put it in, it said could not connect to the server (trying to connect to the machine I am on, perhaps that is the problem?), and I chose to keep it in the list. All the bubbles are red, and I can not do anything.

where do I go from here?

specs:

Power Macintosh G3 Blue And White
400mhz G3
512mb of ram
120gb HD
DVD-ROM/CD-RW
Mac OS X Tiger 10.4.9.

thanks.

-digital Wink

catmistake's picture
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Joined: Dec 20 2003 - 10:38
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running Server?

Server Admin will only recognize Macs running OS X Server. Are you trying to netboot the install DVD?? (never would have thought of that) But you'll need a netboot server.

But you don't need to boot from the dvd to install OS X, just a second drive. Mount the image, then in the Finder navigate to
/Volumes/Mac\ OS\ X\ Install\ DVD/System/Installation/Packages/

and double-click OSInstall.mpkg

and that will launch the installer... which will allow you to install OS X on a drive other than your startup drive.

iamdigitalman's picture
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Joined: Mar 1 2004 - 22:18
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ah, but that is the easy way.

ah, but that is the easy way. I wanted to get netboot working for future instances.

and I am running it on OS X client, not server. Did not know it needed to be on server, since it installed and ran fine. If they wanted to pull that trick, they could put in a artifical limit, like they do with iLife...

I will install the OS that way FOR NOW, but I wish to get it working. Is there some sort of third pary utilities that can do it?

-digital Wink

catmistake's picture
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OS X Server = OS X Client + some pkgs

Basically, client and server are the same OS, but server has extra software installed (someone where I work claimed they had different kernels... but I think he was confusing PPC with Intel as most of the Servers there are the 2.3GHz G5 XServes).

Anything that can be installed on OS X Server can be installed on OS X client. OS X Server has a "serialnumberd" thing running... perhaps that's what identifies it as Server to the Admin app. In fact... if you wanted, on OS X client, you can install free versions of almost every server package on OS X Server...
AFP (built in or http://netatalk.sourceforge.net/)
Application Server http://www.jboss.org/products/jbossas
DHCP http://www.faisal.com/software/DHCP-3.0.readme.html
DNS http://developer.apple.com/opensource/internet/bonjour.html
Firewall (ipfw built in)
FTP (ftpd built in)
iChat (well... XMPP server of some kind http://www.tigase.org/node?page=6)
Mail (Postfix built in)
NAT (natd built in)
NetBoot (not sure if this will work on OS X as the server or not http://www.tuaw.com/2006/12/08/roll-your-own-netboot-server-on-linux/, but there must be something that will, right?)
NFS (built in, howto: http://mactechnotes.blogspot.com/2005/09/mac-os-x-as-nfs-server.html)
Open Directory http://www.openldap.org/
Print http://www.cups.org/ (built-in also, I think)
QuickTime Streaming http://developer.apple.com/opensource/server/streaming/index.html
Software Update (that's a tough one...)
VPN http://www.poptop.org/
Web (apache1 built in)
WebObjects (rumur is it will be open soon)
Windows http://www.samba.org/
Xgrid (another tough one)

but you still wouldn't have OS X Server without all the gui goodness (well, goodness is debatable... OS X Server allows an administrator to do things without understanding what they are doing).

btw, I think NetBoot is really only useful on a gigabit network. I had it working on a 100BaseT network, but it was slllooow to boot, load any apps. Once in memory, worked fine, I guess... if periodic freezing is ok (yes, fine when there's no alternative).

Generally, NetBoot is used for labs of lots of identical systems, makes them easier to maintain.

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