Netinstall Lion- best practices

I need to setup a Net Install image with Lion for multiple macbook pro's and desktops.
I think the best option is to make a image of Lion and run post install scripts for setting up the apps and preferences, does anyone have a good whitepaper for this?

http://www.apple.com/support/lionserver/systemimaging/ for starters.

Similar Messages

Best practice to use Time capsule for back-up of 3 different products (MBP 15 OSX lion, MBP 13 OSX lion and MBA 13 OSX mountain lion)?. Only the MBP15 is back-up regularly.

When I want to save data of the MBA13 on mountain lion (wireless) with time capsule, hois there any best practice to perform?
After that, assuming that data are back-up, can we easily differentiate data in time capsule belonging to MBP15/13 and MBA13?

Unfortunately, Apple left off the Ethernet port....the most important port in networking....on the MBA, so your first backup of the entire Mac will need to be done using wireless.
That may take a day or two unless your MBA has a Thunderbolt port on it in which case you could add a Thunderbolt to Ethernet adapter and connect the MBA to the Time Capsule for the first backup using an Ethernet cable. It will probably only take 3-4 hours or less doing it this way.
Once you have the first complete backup done, other subsequent backups can be done using wireless since they will ony take a few minutes, on average.
Both Macs will backup to the Time Capsule using Time Machine automatically. Backups will be kept completely separate, so one Mac will normally only be able to "see" its own backups.

Time Machine best practices after Lion to Mountain Lion upgrade

I've made the upgrade from Lion to Mountain Lion and everything seems to be OK.
I have been using Time Machine for backups since I deployed my first and, so far, only Mac (Mac Mini running Lion) in 2011. I run my TM backups manually. Since upgrading to Mountain Lion, I have not yet kicked off a TM backup, so my questions involve best practices with TM after an upgrade from Lion to Mountain Lion:
Can I simply use the same drive as I use currently, do what I've always done, start the backup manually, and TM handles gracefully the new backup from the new OS?
At this point, since I have only backups to the Lion system, what I see when I doubleclick on the Time Machine drive is a folder called “Backups.backupdb”, then a subfolder called “My Mac mini”, and then all the backup events.   Nothing else. What will I see once I do a backup now, after the Mountain Lion upgrade?
If I for some reason needed to boot to my old Lion system (I cloned the startup disk prior to upgrading to ML) and access my old Lion backups with TM, would I be successful? In other words does the system know that I'm booted to Lion, so give me access to the TM backups created under Lion?   Conversely when booted to the new Mountain Lion system, will I have access only to the backups created since the upgrade to Mountain Lion?
Any other best practices steps I should take prior to my first ML backup?
Time Machine is a great straightforward system to use (although I have to say I’ve not (yet) needed to depend on it for recovery...I trust that will go will when needed) but I don't want to make any assumptions as to how it works after a major OS upgrade.
Thank you for reading.

1. Correct. If you want to downgrade to OS X Lion, your Mac will still keep backups created with OS X Lion, so just start into Internet Recovery and select one of the backups made with OS X Lion. If you don't want that Time Machine backs up automatically, you may need to use TimeMachineEditor.
2. After making a backup with Mountain Lion, it will be the same, but with a new folder that belongs to the new backup you have created.
3. See my first answer.
4. One advice: when your Time Machine drive gets full, Time Machine deletes old backups, so maybe it can remove all your OS X Lion backups. However, I don't think that you would need to go back to OS X Lion.
If you have any questions apart from those, see Pondini's website > http://pondini.org

Best practiceS for setting up Macs on Network

Greetings.
We have six Macs on our Windows Server network; three iMacs and three laptops. We have set up all the machines and they are joined to the Active Directory. In the past, we have always created local users on the machines and then "browsed" to the server shares and mounted the them. We've learned things have improved/changed over the years and we're just now realizing we can probably have the machines set up to work better. So, I have a couple of questions for "best practices" when setting up each of the machines.
1. Since we’re in a network environment, should we not set up “local logins/users” and instead have users login using their AD login? It seems having a local account creates some conflicts with the server since upgrading to lion.
2. Should we set the computer to not ask for a “list of users” and instead ask for a username and password for logins?
3. For the user that uses the machine most often, they can still customize their desktop when they use an AD login, correct?
4. Should we set up Mobile User Accounts? What exactly does this do?
Any other advice on how we should best be setting up the clients for our environment to make sure we are following best practices would be great!
Thanks for any help!
Jay

Greetings.
We have six Macs on our Windows Server network; three iMacs and three laptops. We have set up all the machines and they are joined to the Active Directory. In the past, we have always created local users on the machines and then "browsed" to the server shares and mounted the them. We've learned things have improved/changed over the years and we're just now realizing we can probably have the machines set up to work better. So, I have a couple of questions for "best practices" when setting up each of the machines.
1. Since we’re in a network environment, should we not set up “local logins/users” and instead have users login using their AD login? It seems having a local account creates some conflicts with the server since upgrading to lion.
2. Should we set the computer to not ask for a “list of users” and instead ask for a username and password for logins?
3. For the user that uses the machine most often, they can still customize their desktop when they use an AD login, correct?
4. Should we set up Mobile User Accounts? What exactly does this do?
Any other advice on how we should best be setting up the clients for our environment to make sure we are following best practices would be great!
Thanks for any help!
Jay

OS X Server 3.0 new setup -- best practices?

Alright, here's what I'm after.
I'm setting up a completely new OS X Server 3.0 environment. It's on a fairly new (1.5 year old) Mac Mini, plenty of RAM and disk space, etc. This server will ONLY be used interally. It will have a private IP address such as 192.168.1.205 which will be outside of my DHCP server's range (192.168.1.10 to .199) to prevent any IP conflicts.
I am using Apple's Thuderbolt-to-Ethernet dongle for the primary network connection. The built-in NIC will be used strictly for a direct iSCSI connection to a brand new Drobo b800i storage device.
This machine will provide the following services, rougly in order of importance:
1. A Time Machine backup server for about 50 Macs running Maverics.
1a. Those networked Macs will authenticate individually to this computer for the Time Machine service
1b. This Server will get it's directory information from my primary server via LDAP/Open Directory
2. Caching server for the same network of computers
3. Serve a NetInstall image which is used to set up new computers when a new employee arrives
4. Maybe calendaring and contacts service, still considering that as a possibility
Can anyone tell me the recommended "best practices" for setting this up from scratch? I've done it twice so far and have faced problems each time. My most frequent problem, once it's set up and running, is with Time Machine Server. With nearly 100 percent consistency, when I get Time Machine Server set up and running, I can't administer it. After a few days, I'll try to look at it via the Server app. About half the time, there'll be the expected green dot by "Time Machine" indicating it is running and other times it won't be there. Regardless, when I click on Time Machine, I almost always get a blank screen simply saying "Loading." On rare occasion I'll get this:
Error Reading Settings
Service functionality and administration may be affected.
Click Continue to administer this service.
Code: 0
Either way, sometimes if I wait long enough, I'll be able to see the Time Machine server setup, but not every time. When I am able to see it, I'll have usability for a few minutes and then it kicks back to "Loading."
I do see this apparently relevant entry in the logs as seen by Console.app (happens every time I see the Loading screen):
servermgrd: [71811] error in getAndLockContext: flock(servermgr_timemachine) FATAL time out
servermgrd: [71811] process will force-quit to avoid deadlock
com.apple.launchd: (com.apple.servermgrd[72081]) Exited with code: 1
If I fire up Terminal and run "sudo serveradmin fullstatus timemachine" it'll take as long as a minute or more and finally come back with:
timemachine:command = "getState"
timemachine:state = "RUNNING"
I've tried to do some digging on these issues and have been greeted with almost nothing to go on. I've seen some rumblings about DNS settings, and here's what that looks like:
sudo changeip -checkhostname
Primary address = 192.168.1.205
Current HostName = Time-Machine-Server.local
The DNS hostname is not available, please repair DNS and re-run this tool.
dirserv:success = "success"
If DNS is a problem, I'm at a loss how to fix it. I'm not going to have a hostname because this isn't on a public network.
I have similar issues with Caching, NetInstall, etc.
So clearly I'm doing something wrong. I'm not upgrading, again, this is an entirely clean install. I'm about ready to blow it away and start fresh again, but before I do, I'd greatly appreciate any insight from others on some "best practices" or an ordered list on the best way to get this thing up and running smoothy and reliably.

Everything in OS X is dependant on proper DNS. You probably should start there. It is the first service you should be configuring and it is the most important to keep right. Don't configure any services until you have DNS straight. In OS X, DNS really stands for Do Not Skip.
This may be your toughest decision. Decide what name you want the machine to be. You have two choices.
1: Buy a valid domain name and use it on your LAN devices. You may not have a need now for use externally, but in the future when you use VPN, Profile Manager, or Web Services, at least you are prepared. This method is called split horizon DNS. Example would be apple.com. Internally you may name the server tm.apple.com. Then you may alias to it vpn.apple.com. Externally, users can access the service via vpn.apple.com but tm.apple.com remains a private address only.
2: Create an invalid private domain name. This will never route on the web so if you decide to host content for internal/external use, you may run into trouble, especially with services that require SSL certificates. Examples might be ringsmuth.int or andy.priv. These type of domains are non-routable and can result in issues of trust when communicating with other servers, but it is possible.
Once you have the name sorted out, you need to configure DNS. If you are on a network with other servers, just have the DNS admin create an A and PTR record for you. If this is your only server, then you need to configure and start the DNS service on Mavericks. The DNS service is the best Apple has ever created. A ton of power in a compact tool. For your needs, you likely need to just hit the + button and fill out the New Device record. Use a fully qualified host name in the first field and the IP address of your server (LAN address). You did use a fixed IP address and disabled the wireless card, right?
Once you have DNS working, then you can start configuring your other services. Time Machine should be pretty simple. A share point will be created automatically for you. But before you get here, I would encourage starting Open Directory. Don't do that until DNS is right and you pass the sudo changeip -checkhostname test.
R-
Apple Consultants Network
Apple Professional Services
Author, "Mavericks Server – Foundation Services" :: Exclusively in the iBooks Store

Best practice file management

Hello everyone
I'm hoping to receive some advice on the best way to store a large collection of music, pictures and video, whilst keeping my computer as empty as possible to maximise it's processing power for professional video editing in the future. The computer is for both personal and business use, and I share it with my partner who is a music fiend, but not computer savvy.
I have recently purchased a new 27" iMac with the standard specs (3.1GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5, 4GB memory, 1TB hard drive). It is currently running Snow Leopard (v. 10.6.6), and I plan to update to Lion when I purchase a new broadband account.
I also have:
One external 1TB Western Digital drive, currently at 85% capacity, with music, videos and pictures
One external 1TB Western Digital drive, currently empty
A new 2TB time capsule which is not yet set up
Apple TV, not yet set up
A mobile USB modem and basic account, soon to be replaced by a fairly high speed broadband modem with a fairly large download cap
So far, I have:
created three user profiles - one administrator, and two users
Set up iTunes so each user shares a single library and itunes media folder
We would like to also digitise a large collection of CDs and records.
I was thinking about using the time capsule not only for storage/back up, but also to create a wireless network, allowing it to be stored with my printer and the hard drives can be stored in different room to the computer, away from sight. The computer is so very gorgeous on it's own after all.... I've been advised also to use it as a wireless router when we purchase our broadband account, so I'm assuming the modem should also be connected to the time capsule in the other room.
Rather than droning on about what I think I should do, I wondered if one of you experts could advise me on the best way to set everything up? I'm not sure that it's the best idea to set it up so the computer is always having to find files wirelessly from the time capsule and connected drives... Wouldn't that be slow?
The advice I've read in the various forums has been rather confusing, so your advice would be really appreciated!!
Cheers
Fiona

Hi Fiona,
Like your question, I'm in same boat and new to iMAC all together and want to setup backup and sharing strategy via best practice right up front. Did you get any response or any good best practice you ran across in your research you an share with me? Thanks.

I'm looking for best practice on allowing employees to install apps.

How does your company deal with employees uploading apps on company owned devices? Is there a request process? Can they expense them? What if they use their personal Apple accounts? Do you use an MDM to manage the devices? What are your security concerns? I'm in the process of formulating a policy (large multi national corp.) and am looking for some best practices.
Thanks

I think the main consideration is that you a multi-national organization, presumably widely distributed geographically. Local management via Configurator or USB IPCU really don't make sense over the long term. An MDM is designed for situations such as you describe. For licensing reasons,each iPad used by a different individual must have a unique Apple ID. One individual could use the same Apple ID on multiple devices he or she controls. Individual devices used by multiple individuals can also have a single Apple ID. In our environment, we typically ask each user to setup an individual Apple ID when they receive their device. They are allowed to download and pay for whatever personal apps they choose. Apps which would be used for Business purposes must be vetted by Security to ensure they protect organization data. Business apps can be deployed via the Apple VPP using our MDM, which is AirWatch. An MDM is included with Lion Server. You could look at this to get some ideas about what it does and how it does it. Airwatch offers a free trial. Some users of this forum have had experience with Meraki. That is another choice. You should also look at the Enterprise Deployment Guide
http://manuals.info.apple.com/en_US/Enterprise_Deployment_guide.pdf
and the VPP
http://www.apple.com/business/vpp/
Frankly, though it isn't completely applicable to your situation, the Education deployment guide has a great deal of good information
http://images.apple.com/education/docs/IOS_5_Education_Deployment_Guide.pdf
Hope this helps a bit.

ICloud document library organization best practices?

While I think the iCloud document library could work pretty well if I was iOS-only, I'm still having some trouble organizing something that works with my work and personal Macs as well. A big gap is lack of an iOS version of Preview.
But more importantly, I still keep documents organized by project, and I have a lot of project folders because, well, I have a lot of work! I'm not sure how to best reconcile that with the limitations imposed by iCloud Documents. And I'm not sure how/if Mavericks tags will really help.
The best example I've seen of a best practice to organizing iCloud documents was in this blog post from the makers of iA Writer:
http://ia.net/blog/mountain-lions-new-file-system/
Their folder structure mirrored their workflow rather than projects, which I think could be interesting. They haven't updated it since Mavericks, and I'm curious how they might add tags. Perhaps tags would be used for projects?
Right now, I tend to just keep documents in iCloud that I'm actively working on, since I might need to edit it at home or on my iPad. Once they're complete, I move them to the respective project folder on the Mac. Dropbox keeps the project folders in sync, which makes iCloud Documents feel redundant.
This workflow still feels klugy to me.
Basically, I'm asking, have you effectively incorporated iCloud Documents into your Mac workflow? What are your best practice recommendations?
Thanks.
Paul

>
Madhu_1980 wrote:
> Hi,
>
>
> As per the doc "Best Practices for Naming Conventions" https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/go/portal/prtroot/docs/library/uuid/90b213c2-d311-2a10-89bf-956dbb63aa7f
>
> In this doc, we see there are no prefixes or suffixes like DT_ for data types, MT_ for Message types, SI_ for service interfaces OM_ for operation mappings (MM_ in message mappings in earlier versions).
>
> but i have seen some people maintain these kind of conventions.
>
> For larger projects, what is the best option,
> A) to strictly follow the instructions in the above document and not to maintain the object type prefixes or suffixes.
> B) or to have this kind of prefixes in addition to what mentioned in the naming conventions doc.
>
> which is preferable, from point of long term maintainance.
>
> i would appreciate an opinion/guideline from people who had worked on multiple projects.
>
> thanks,
> madhu.
I have seen projects where they are specific to having DT_, MT_ prefixes and also projects which dont use them.
Even though you dont have a DT_ or MT_ prefix for DT and MT, it would be essential to have AA, OA, OS, IS etc defining a message or service interface that will give you an idea of the mode and direction of the interface.
On a generic term, i strongly feel that the naming conventions suggested by the document is quite enough to accommodate a large number of projects unless something very specific pops up.

Any "best practices" for managing a 1.3TB iPhoto library?

Does anyone have any "best practices" or suggestions for managing and dealing with a large iPhoto library? I currently have a 1.3 TB library. This is made up of anything shot in the past 8 years culminating with the past 2 years being 5D Mark II images. This also includes a big dose of 1080P video shot with the camera. These are only our family photos so I would hate to break up the library into years as that would really hurt a lot of iPhotos "power".
It runs fine in day to day use, but I recently tried to upgrade to iPhoto 11 and it crashes repeatedly during the upgrading library process.
(I have backups, so no worries there.)
I just know with Lion and iPhoto 9 being a bit old my upgrade day is coming and I'm not sure what my path is.

If you have both versions of iPhoto on your Mac then try the following; While running iPhoto 09 create a new, test library and import a few photos into it. Then try to convert that test library with iPhoto 11. If it converts OK then your big library is causing the problem.
If that's the case you can try rebuilding your working library as follows: make a temporary, backup copy of the library and try the following:
launch iPhoto with the Command+Option keys held down and rebuild the library.
select the options identified in the screenshot.
Click to view full size
Once rebuild try converting it to iPhoto 11.
NOTE: if you already have a backup copy of your library you don't need to make the temporary backup copy.
OT

Best Practices for Backing Up Large (+10TB) Servers?

As we migrate to OS Lion Server, I need to revisit backup scenarios. I'm interested in researching best practices, which may include Time Machine for incrementals but also needs some sort of off-site possibilities (such as tape and then store somewhere else).
(In Snow Leopard, we're having real trouble with BRU (unintelligible) and Roxio's retrospect for our DLT tape backups.)
I would think this would be a great discussion for many to have.

Mark as answered!

Mac Pro 10.7 Server DMZ best practice

The Mac Pro has 2 gigE, what is the best practice for lion server and DMZ?
Should I Ignor one and put the server in the DMZ and firewall from the LAN to the server (pain for file share), or use one port for the DMZ and one into the LAN.
I have been trying to use the two ports and LION SERVER seems to want to bind only to one address (10.1.1.1 DMZ or 192.168.1.1 LAN).
Does anyone have a best practice for this? I a using a Cisco ASA 5500 for the firewall.
Thank you

If you put your server in a DMZ all trafffic will be sent to it unfiltered, in which case the server firewall would be your only line of defense against attack.
For better security, set firewall rules in the Cisco that will pass trafffic to the ports you want open and deny traffic on all other ports. You can also restrict access to specific ports by allowing or denying specific IP addresses or address blocks in the firewall settings.

"Installation best practices." Really?

"Install Final Cut Pro X, Motion 5, or Compressor 4 on a new partition - The partition must be large enough to contain all the files required by the version of Mac OS X you are installing, the applications you install, and enough room for projects and media…"
As a FCS3 user, if you were to purchase an OS Lion Mac, what would your "Installation best practices" be? It seems the above recommendation is not taking into consideration FCS3s abrupt death, or my desire to continue to use it for a very long time.
Wouldn't the best practice be to install FCS3 on a separate partition with an OS that you never, ever update? Also, there doesn't appear to be any value added to FCS with Lion. That's why I would be inclined to partition FCS3 with Snow Leopard -- but I'm really just guessing after being thrown off a cliff without a parachute.
Partitioning… does this mean I'll need to restart my computer to use FCS? What about my other "applications"? Will I be able to run Adobe Creative Suite off the other partition, or is the "best practice" to install a duplicate of every single application I own on the FCS partition?
Note: This is not to say I'll never embrace FCX. But paying (with time & money) to be a beta tester just isn't gonna happen. If it's as easy to use as claimed, I'm not falling behind, as has been suggested by some. I'm just taking a pass on the early adopter frustration.

Okay, but are you not concerned with future OS updates that may render FCS3 useless? Perhaps our needs are different, but I want and need FCS3 to continue to work in the future.
That "best practices" link up at the top of this page is there for a reason, and it says "partition." What it doesn't say is why, and that's really disappointing and concerning. It's a little late in the game, but I would prefer Apple walk like a man and lay it on the line; the good, the bad, and the ugly.
I'm glad to hear Lion is working okay for you!

Logical level in Fact tables - best practice

Hi all,
I am currently working on a complex OBIEE project/solution where I am going straight to the production tables, so the fact (and dimension) tables are pretty complex since I am using more sources in the logical tables to increase performance. Anyway, what I am many times struggling with is the Logical Levels (in Content tab) where the level of each dimension is to be set. In a star schema (one-to-many) this is pretty straight forward and easy to set up, but when the Business Model (and physical model) gets more complex I sometimes struggle with the aggregates - to get them work/appear with different dimensions. (Using the menu "More" - "Get levels" does not allways give the best solution......far from). I have some combinations of left- and right outer join as well, making it even more complicated for the BI server.
For instance - I have about 10-12 different dimensions - should all of them allways be connected to each fact table? Either on Detail or Total level. I can see the use of the logical levels when using aggregate fact tables (on quarter, month etc.), but is it better just to skip the logical level setup when no aggregate tables are used? Sometimes it seems like that is the easiest approach...
Does anyone have a best practice concerning this issue? I have googled for this but I haven't found anything good yet. Any ideas/articles are highly appreciated.

Hi User,
For instance - I have about 10-12 different dimensions - should all of them always be connected to each fact table? Either on Detail or Total level.It not necessary to connect to all dimensions completely based on the report that you are creating ,but as a best practice we should maintain all at Detail level only,when you are mentioning any join conditions in physical layer
for example for the sales table if u want to report at ProductDimension.ProductnameLevel then u should use detail level else total level(at Product,employee level)
Get Levels. (Available only for fact tables) Changes aggregation content. If joins do not exist between fact table sources and dimension table sources (for example, if the same physical table is in both sources), the aggregation content determined by the administration tool will not include the aggregation content of this dimension.
Source admin guide(get level definition)
thanks,
Saichand.v

Best practices for setting up users on a small office network?

Hello,
I am setting up a small office and am wondering what the best practices/steps are to setup/manage the admin, user logins and sharing privileges for the below setup:
Users: 5 users on new iMacs (x3) and upgraded G4s (x2)
Video Editing Suite: Want to connect a new iMac and a Mac Pro, on an open login (multiple users)
All machines are to be able to connect to the network, peripherals and external hard drive. Also, I would like to setup drop boxes as well to easily share files between the computers (I was thinking of using the external harddrive for this).
Thank you,

Hi,
Thanks for your posting.
When you install AD DS in the hub or staging site, disconnect the installed domain controller, and then ship the computer to the remote site, you are disconnecting a viable domain controller from the replication topology.
For more and detail information, please refer to:
Best Practices for Adding Domain Controllers in Remote Sites
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc794962(v=ws.10).aspx
Regards.
Vivian Wang

Add fields in transformations in BI 7 (best practice)?

Hi Experts,
I have a question regarding transformation of data in BI 7.0.
Task:
Add new fields in a second level DSO, based on some manipulation of first level DSO data. In 3.5 we would have used a start routine to manipulate and append the new fields to the structure.
Possible solutions:
1) Add the new fields to first level DSO as well (empty)
- Pro: Simple, easy to understand
- Con: Disc space consuming, performance degrading when writing to first level DSO
2) Use routines in the field mapping
- Pro: Simple
- Con: Hard to performance optimize (we could of course fill an internal table in the start routine and then read from this to get some performance optimization, but the solution would be more complex).
3) Update the fields in the End routine
- Pro: Simple, easy to understand, can be performance optimized
- Con: We need to ensure that the data we need also exists (i.e. if we have one field in DSO 1 that we only use to calculate a field in DSO 2, this would also have to be mapped to DSO 2 in order to exist in the routine).
Does anybody know what is best practice is? Or do you have any experience regarding what you see as the best solution?
Thank you in advance,
Mikael

Hi Mikael.
I like the 3rd option and have used this many many times. In answer to your question:-
Update the fields in the End routine
- Pro: Simple, easy to understand, can be performance optimized - Yes have read and tested this that it works faster. A OSS consulting note is out there indicating the speed of the end routine.
- Con: We need to ensure that the data we need also exists (i.e. if we have one field in DSO 1 that we only use to calculate a field in DSO 2, this would also have to be mapped to DSO 2 in order to exist in the routine). - Yes but by using the result package, the manipulation can be done easily.
Hope it helps.
Thanks,
Pom

Netinstall Lion- best practices

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