Specifications

Additionally, you must ensure that you are not blocking any traffic between the
clients and the server. NetBoot images are served via TFTP, AFP, HTTP, or
NFS, so these ports (and any ”return” ports for protocols such as NFS) must be
open. If your setup doesn’t seem to be working, try opening all ports to confirm
that the problem isn’t networking-related.
1.3 Building a Rescue Image
Using NetBoot, we can create a ”rescue disk” that can boot client computers
that are damaged or that need system software installation. This is a simple
way to keep all your system utilities in a single place, and makes repairing and
restoring systems very easy.
1.3.1 Selecting a Machine
To build your rescue image, you’ll need a machine to install the software on.
We’ll call this machine the master machine.
Your master machine should be the best computer available to you. Macintosh
computers will often run systems from computers that are more recent, but the
reverse is not always true.
You may wish to use an external drive to build the system image. This prevents
you from having to erase a production machine, and makes loading the image
onto the NetBoot server very easy. Alternately, you may prepare the image on
a machine’s internal hard drive, and then boot it into Target Mode to transfer
the image.
You will be installing a system from scratch onto this machine. Make sure you’ve
backed everything up, in case something goes wrong.
1.3.2 Base Installation
OS X Installation
Begin by booting the master machine with the latest installation media you
have.
You should choose a full Erase and Install option from the installer to ensure
that you do not have any leftover cruft from the previous system.
Additionally, you should choose to perform a Custom Install. On the cus-
tomization screen, deselect any options that are not necessary. This includes
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