Snow Leopard™ Server

Chapter 34. Managing Client Systems with NetBoot

In This Chapter

• Introduction to NetBoot

• Planning NetBoot deployment

• NetBoot setup and configuration

• Managing and monitoring NetBoot

NetBoot is a feature provided with Mac OS X Server that enables administrators to create and manage disk images that client machines on the network can boot from directly, simplifying the process of rolling out security patches, system updates, and application upgrades.

Instead of managing software on each machine individually, a single disk image can be modified in one place and subsequently used to boot up a variety of machines on the network.

Multiple NetBoot disk images can be defined for different tasks or types of users, allowing systems to be completely reconfigured, even several times a day.

For example, NetBoot can be used to periodically boot systems by using different images so machines in the same lab could be used for different classes, with each set up with a unique set of applications or even different operating system versions.

It's even possible to use NetBoot to start up systems by using a network disk image without needing a local disk at all, achieving the premise envisioned for the low-maintenance, thin client network computer.

Mac OS X Server supplies the following tools for working with disk images that the NetBoot service uses:

• System Image Utility to create NetBoot disk images

• Server Admin to configure the NetBoot service

• PackageMaker, a component of the Xcode developer tools, to create install ...