Specifications

182 Chapter 11 Working with NetBoot Service and System Images
Working with System Images
A boot image is a file that acts like a mountable disk or volume. NetBoot boot images
contain the system software needed to act as a startup disk for client computers on the
network. An installation image is a special boot image that boots the client long
enough to install software from the image, after which the client can start up from its
own hard disk.
Both boot images and installation images are special kinds of disk images. Disk images
are files that behave like disk volumes.
You can set up multiple boot or installation images to suit the needs of different
groups of clients or to provide several copies of the same image to distribute the client
startup load. By using NetBoot with Mac OS X client management services, you can
provide a personalized work environment for each user.
Updating an Image
To update a package from the command line, use the installer tool the same way
you would to install packages on your default installation volume.
To update an image:
$ installer -pkg pkg.mpkg -target image_path
Booting from an Image
To boot from an image, set the nvram environment variables by using the nvram tool or
by booting into open firmware mode.
To boot from an image:
1 Boot into open firmware by pressing command-option-o-f as you boot.
2 At the prompt, enter the following:
> setenv boot-file enet:YourServerIPAddress,NetBoot\NetBootsSP*\<name of
.nbi folder>\mach.macosx
> setenv boot-args rp=nfs: YourServerIPAddress:/private/tftpboot/NetBoot/
NetBootSP*:<name of .nbi folder>/<Name of image>.dmg
> setenv boot-device enet: YourServerIPAddress,NetBoot\NetBootSP*\<name of
.nbi folder>\booter
> mac-boot