Category Archives: imaging

No NetBoot, No problem: installr and bootstrappr

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It’s 2019, and NetBoot is almost dead. All new Macs have T2 chips. Sent from the future to protect us from …. ourselves? No more NetBoot, no problem!!

When NetBoot first appeared and I was able to boot entire labs of Macs across the network I was amazed and overjoyed. It was awesome. Spinning globe, spinning…

Netboot-GlobeSpin.jpg

But in the years since I’ve moved on to no-imaging. Using Munki to manage software means no more imaging, just install Munki and a small config change to point to the Munki server, thereafter the software that should be there goes on, and what’s not supposed to be there goes away. Simple. Just install one package, well, maybe two, then you’re good.

Well, what if you want to streamline or automate these things? What if these are new Macs which don’t have users configured? What if we could do all this from recovery mode? Hmm… Enter bootstrappr and installr!!

bootstrappr

This awesome project allows to add packages to install in one step while booted in recovery mode. Plug in a USB stick with the bootstrapr script to run the package install magic or mount a disk image over http. Create a DMG with the included script make_dmg.sh. And now this is the best part: in recovery mode open the Terminal app from Utilities and type:

hdiutil mount http://server/yourDMG.dmg

Then:

/Volumes/bootstrap/run

When it’s done you can Reboot the Mac and you’ll have a set up customized to your liking with Munki installed and configured with custom settings.

installr

The installr script works in the same way but adds the macOS installer to the party. You can also mount the DMG over http and re-image a Mac and then add your custom packages. It’s awesome. Truly amazing.

One note: Added packages in Installr must be in a special format. From the installr site: startosinstall requires that all additional packages be Distribution-style packages (typically built with productbuild) and not component-style packages (typically built with pkgbuild)

productbuild --package component.pkg --version x.y --identifier com.example.component distribution.pkg

In one of my first tests with installr and pycreateuserpkg I was caught up by this, even though it is properly mentioned in the read me. Packages that work in Bootstrappr or munki directly don’t necessarily work when called by the macOS installer (startoinstall). Armin Briegel was helpful in the MacAdmins Slack and reminded me of this. Thanks Armin and thanks everyone on the MacAdmins Slack.

Many Thanks to Greg Neagle for creating these tools and Munki. Looking forward to hearing him speak at the next MacDevOps:YVR conference June 12-14, 2019. Greg will be speaking about his efforts to port some parts of Munki from Python to Swift. More info on the conference and speakers here: https://mdoyvr.com/speakers/

Also a shout out to Graham Gilbert who has worked on Imagr (MDOYVR talk), over the years, an imaging and automation tool which was also an inspiration (along with bootstrappr and installr) to Tim Perfit and his MDS project.

Update: corrected the names of installr and bootstrappr in the title because… autocorrect.

 

MDOYVR 2018

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MacDevOps:YVR 2018 tickets are on sale now. Buy one for everyone in your MacAdmin family.

Seems like just the other day we were hanging out with our friends who came from all over the world to talk Open Source and macOS management, and now we can do it all again!

Tickets are on sale now.

MacDevOps:YVR is the place for Mac Admins interested in integrating DevOps into their IT practise. Developers and IT (Ops) working together to build a better world.

Join us at MacDevOps:YVR 2018, our annual conference, for two days of learning and networking in Vancouver, BC, Canada. With speakers from a diverse group of companies, this year’s conference will be the best place to talk about Open Source projects that matter to the community. Learn from your peers, and connect with fellow Mac Admins.

We will be discussing: munki, imagr, autopkg, chef, puppet and all your favourite Open Source projects. This year we will be discussing MDM and all the changes in macOS. We’re planning another hack night because it was so much fun last year, and if you are interested in a particular workshop topic let us know.

Learn more at https://mdoyvr.com

And because we’re always learning from every conference we’ve organized we’re trying something different this year: tiered pricing for tickets. We want everyone to join us and we want to make it fair for independents, students and others who want to be there. At the same time we want to pay the bills and support a diverse group of speakers and attendees who might not be able to attend due to lack of funds.

We’ve created three tickets: corporate (if your work is paying), independent (if you’re buying you’re own ticket), and education (students and those who work in schools). Last, but not least, the Donation ticket is for those who want to contribute to our financial aid fund. Help those who want to speak and/or attend but need some help.

Ticket sales: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/mdoyvr2018-tickets-38821491125

Hello macOS Sierra, bye bye El Cap

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We welcome the beautiful and wonderful macOS Sierra (10.12) and say good bye to the old and weary El Capitan (OS X 10.11.6)…. Wait, not so fast. Slow it down. Just a tad bit.

While Watchman is alerting me to users downloading, then installing the newest Apple macOS (née OS X, Mac OS X), we must be ready. Ready to troubleshoot issues with apps that developers haven’t tested thoroughly for a new OS that appears to be the same, but changes everything under the hood.

How do we test? In a VM of course.

What do we need:

  1. VMWare Fusion
  2. Greg et. al. createOSXinstallPkg
  3. Rich Trouton’s disable setup assistant payload free packages
  4. Mager Valp’s Create User Pkg
  5. Greg et. al. Munki (latest release)
  6. add your own packages, such as a munki kicksart (set repo url, client identifier, etc)
  7. UPDATE: we can’t forget Rich Trouton’s First Boot Generator App

What are we doing?

createOSXinstallPkg was created to turn Apple’s App Store Install macOS Sierra.app or previous Install OS X versions into nice Apple installer packages to upgrade in place using Munki (or other deployment tools). The new trick added recently is to create a new Fake Install.app with our packages to use install in VMWare Fusion instead of on a real Mac.

UPDATED STEPS! Note: I’d forgotten about First Boot Generator

  1. Download your installer app of choice (Install macOS sierra)
  2. Download createOSX installer
  3. Prepare your custom packages, or gathers ones your want to add to the installer
  4. Organize your installers into folders like this: 00, 01, 02, etc
  5. Launch First Boot Generator App and transmogrify that folders of packages
  6. Run createOSX installer with the fake app option if you want to test a VM, or without if you want to build a package
  7. Run createOSX as many times as you want with different OS X installers, and the same first boot package. Test diff OS installers with your customer PKGs.

Note: use the “–make-fake-app” option to prep for VMWare Fusion, omit it for a pkg

Note2: Here’s some examples using createOSXinstallPkg and various OSX installers

createOSXinstallPkg sudo ./createOSXinstallPkg --source /Volumes/SSD/Install\ macOS\ Sierra.app --make-fake-app --pkg ~/bin/PKG_BUILD/FirstBoot_staging/First\ Boot\ Package\ Install.pkg --output /Volumes/Updates/Builds

createOSXinstallPkg sudo ./createOSXinstallPkg --source /Volumes/Updates/Builds/Install\ OS\ X\ El\ Capitan.app --pkg ~/bin/PKG_BUILD/FirstBoot_staging/First\ Boot\ Package\ Install.pkg --output /Volumes/Updates/Builds

 

firstbootgeneratorapp

firstbootpackages

Note: If you get a message that your custom pkg you want to add is not a Flat package then use productbuild to repackage it.

Example:

➜  productbuild –package SetMunkiRepo.pkg SetMunkiRepo_flat.pkg

 

Reference: See Greg’s post on Managing OS X for more info make VMWare images using this method. And also Rich Trouton’s Der Flounder blog post on First Book Generator App

 

 

Hands on with Imagr

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At the recent MacTech conference in Los Angeles I got a chance to sit in a workshop led by Graham Gilbert walking us through his open source imaging tool, Imagr.

This was a perfect follow-up to last year’s awesome demo by Pepijn Bruienne at last year’s MacTech where he demoed his BSDPy netboot replacement running in a Docker container net booting and imaging a new VM in VMWare. Amazing live netboot demo with bonus points for writing your own netboot replacement in Python, stuffing it into a Docker container!

This year, Graham Gilbert led us through setting up BSDPy Docker container, getting the link to VMware working and using his Imagr tool to image a new VM instance of OS X. Fun stuff.

Here are some screenshots:

  1. VMWare booting up looking for NetBoot services
VMWare booting up

VMWare booting up

2. The lovely NetBoot globe spinning

Netboot globe

NetBoot

3. Progress!

Booting up

Booting up

4. Image NetBoot image booted

Netboot image booted, but there’s an issue with the plist I built by hand. Some of the keys and strings got mixed up when copying from the whiteboard. Thanks to Rich Trouton who was sitting next to me who helped me diff his plist with mine to find how I’d messed it up. Easy to fix, slightly tricky to find. Luckily you only have to edit this plist to do initial set up.

Image NetBoot image booted

Image NetBoot image booted

5. Imagr start up

Imagr start up

Imagr start up

6. Imagr starting, password first

Image password

Image password

7. Imagr restoring OS X image

Imagr restoring OS X image

Imagr restoring OS X image

8. Imgr completed workflow

Imgr completed workflow

Imgr completed workflow

9. Shutting docker down

docker down

docker down

Reference:

Graham Gilbert’s blog post with slides of the workshop.

http://grahamgilbert.com/blog/2015/11/12/mactech-2015-hands-on-with-imagr/

Pepijn Bruienne’s blog, Enterprise Mac

http://enterprisemac.bruienne.com