H ow do I create or write to images to disk on Apple Mac OS X (macOS) Unix operating system with dd command? (Note that the createinstallmedia tool doesn’t work under OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard—it requires OS X 10.7 Lion or later.) The Disk Utility method is the way to go for people who are more. Global Nav Open Menu Global Nav Close Menu; Apple; Shopping Bag +. A file extension format like DMG Apple Mac OS X Disk Image is a standard way that information is encoded for storage in a computer file. The file extension DMG Apple Mac OS X Disk Image format specifies how bits are used to encode information in a digital storage medium. File formats may be either proprietary or free and may be either unpublished or open.

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Understanding System Image Creation

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This chapter will show you how to select a system imaging technique that meets your deployment needs, integrate advanced Mac OS X managed preferences with your system image, create a cloned system image using Disk Utility, create basic network disk images using System Image Utility, and build a modular NetRestore image using System Image Utility.

This chapter is from the book 

Apple Training Series: Mac OS X Deployment v10.6: A Guide to Deploying and Maintaining Mac OS X and Mac OS X Software

This chapter is from the book

This chapter is from the book 

Apple Training Series: Mac OS X Deployment v10.6: A Guide to Deploying and Maintaining Mac OS X and Mac OS X Software

Chapter Files

Deployment Planning Template.pdf, available at www.peachpit.com/acsa.deployment

Mac OS X v10.6 installation media

Time

This chapter usually takes approximately 4 hours to complete, but it could take much longer depending on the complexity of your deployment.

Goals

Select a system imaging technique that meets your deployment needs
Integrate advanced Mac OS X managed preferences with your system image
Create a cloned system image using Disk Utility
Create basic network disk images using System Image Utility
Build a modular NetRestore image using System Image Utility

For many deployments, the best solution is a unified system disk image, which involves creating an ideal system, saving it to a disk image, and then deploying that system to all your computers. A unified system image requires a significant time investment up front, but it saves a great deal of time in the long run. Computers with identical configurations are much easier to manage; the fewer the differences between your deployed systems, the more uniform their performance and the less time spent diagnosing problems, updating software, and reconfiguring hardware.

A unified system image also greatly accelerates the deployment process for any deployment larger than a dozen computers. Once you have fully configured, tested, and created a custom system image on one computer, it can take as little as five minutes to copy it to another machine. Compare this with the time needed to deploy the system individually on every computer, and it’s easy to see the benefit of a deployable system disk image. In this chapter you will learn two general methods for creating deployable system disk images: cloning from a model system and building a modular system.

Understanding System Image Creation

Before starting the process of creating a system image, you must consider your deployment requirements: what software and configuration settings will be part of your system image? Consider your users, your systems, and the limitations of identical-system deployment on multiple computers. You also need to consider which of the two image creation methodologies will best suit your needs and abilities. The choices you make while planning your system image will affect every computer on which this system is deployed.

Defining System Image Requirements

When identifying all the specific items and configuration settings that you want to include in your system image, you must take into consideration the requirements of your users, the technical requirements of your systems, and the limitations of deploying an identical system on multiple computers.

User Requirements

Your primary focus when developing system image requirements should be on maximizing system usability, for both users and administrators. In some cases your target audience or usage policies may require tighter system control. This is often the case when users are inexperienced or cannot be trusted to manage any part of their systems. In this scenario you would limit application access and lock down as many system configuration settings as possible. You would also want to make things easy for the user by preconfiguring any system setting you can. In scenarios where you will be performing a significant amount of client management, you should incorporate directory services–based managed preferences.

In professional or creative environments, you may not need to be as restrictive in the application or settings, but you should still make sure to prepare the system based on the users’ needs; for instance, install third-party applications and peripheral drivers for inclusion with your system image.

No matter the level of your users, your system image should be as fully configured as possible, with both Apple and third-party software installed and updated, any necessary support files such as third-party drivers and fonts installed, and any systemwide configuration settings implemented. Note, though, that many settings are not well suited to deployment via a unified system image—more on this topic later in this section.

Computer-Specific System Requirements

Before you create your system image, you must determine which version of Mac OS X you intend to use. A major administrative advantage of using Mac OS X v10.6 and Mac OS X Server v10.6 is that they include all the hardware drivers necessary to work with any Mac that meets the minimum system requirements, allowing you to build a single system image that can work on any Mac.

Although creating a unified system image for computers that support Mac OS X v10.6 is simple, creating a system image for brand-new Macs can present a significant problem. In many cases, because the release of new Mac computers is not in sync with the release of the retail version of Mac OS X, a custom intermediate version of Mac OS X is created just to support the new hardware. However, new Macs cannot run versions of Mac OS X released prior to their introduction—that is, the oldest version of Mac OS X supported by a new Mac computer is the version that it ships with from the factory.

Thus, a previously created system image will not work on new Mac computers, and you will have to create a new system image based on the version of Mac OS X that shipped with the new Macs. Further, these custom intermediate versions of Mac OS X may technically work with older Mac computers, but they are not officially supported by Apple to do so, presenting a problem when you are trying to build a single unified system image.

Fortunately, every general Mac OS X version update includes support for all Mac computers introduced prior to the update. For example, if you were to acquire new Macs that were introduced this week, the next general update of Mac OS X will include support for those new Macs and will support older hardware as well. Therefore, if you can wait to build your system image until you can base it on the next general update for Mac OS X, you can create a single system image for all your Macs. If you can’t wait that long, you will need to create a separate system image just for your new Macs.

It’s important to note that custom intermediate versions of Mac OS X for new computers do not use different version numbers from the general releases. They do, however, have different build numbers, which can be identified by clicking once on the version number from the About This Mac window.

Software Update Requirements

You should strive to build your system image using the latest versions of your selected software. To do this, you’ll need to collect and keep track of all the necessary soft

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