[SOLVED] Remote Installations on Multiple Machines

[bigshootr8]

As the topic suggests I would like to install iOS X on multiple macbooks at the same time remotely from a network drive. I'm open to suggestions.

 

[i7Baby]

Do it in person instead.

 

[bigshootr8]

Do it in person instead.

I work in a office where we are trying to do a bunch of laptops at the same time. I'm just trying to find the most efficient way in doing this. I would recommend purchasing a bunch of USB drives but I'd like to see if I can do it over the network.

 

[Alabalcho]

I know that asking this question for iProduct is silly, but - if these MacBook's are "easy" to open, why not clone the drives?

 

[Ijack]

You need OS X Server running on one machine (which is cheap enough nowadays). Then it's easy: http://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT202061

 

[bigshootr8]

You need OS X Server running on one machine (which is cheap enough nowadays). Then it's easy: http://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT202061

I've seen this link as well. Thank you though for explaining it a bit more. So essentially I would purchase the software OSX server and install it on a machine. Then I would need to have it setup on the network so that I could connect to it for the image. However with that being said though I have more then one operating system I'd like to install. For on our older systems I'll place 10.4 on them where as the newer ones I'll go straight to Maverick or Yosemite.

 

[Ijack]

You can create multiple OS images to deploy, but I don't know whether you can push updates to PPC machines this way. You might want to have a look at the documentation linked to in that Apple article.

 

[unplugme71]

Setup a single Mac Server. Create an image on a MacBook. Then copy the image to the server. Provide the image to the NetInstall service. Then boot your Mac in network mode. It'll ping for a server and once it finds it, it will load this image.

Depending on your network, you may be able to do 5, 10, 25 or more concurrently. Disk i/o will become a factor if your server is providing the image from a 5400rpm drive. I use a Mac Mini with a TB2 attached device to provide images. I usually do 3 at a time which seems to work fairly well. Any more and it bogs down.