Classroom and Lab Computing

Updated 08/08/2008

These instructions apply to Mac OS X 10.5.4 (Leopard) or higher. Versions prior to 10.5.4 had problems with restoring compressed images. These instructions are largely based on the asr man pages.

1. Read the asr (Apple Software Restore) man page: Open terminal.app and enter "man asr". This isn't necessary, but it does a great job of explaining more of this process in detail.
2. Install Mac OS X on the master Mac and set it up the way you want it to work. Ie, Applications, printers, automated scripts, etc.
3. Boot up from another partition or External FireWire Hard Disk with Mac OS X 10.5.4 or higher (Leopard).
4. Login with an administrator account.
5. Enable Permissions on the Disk to Image (Assumes that the disk is named "Macintosh HD", of course):
   1. Select "Macintosh HD"
   2. In the menu bar, select "File" and then "Get Info"
      
      
      
   3. UN-check the "Ignore ownership on this volume" checkbox:
      
      
   
   
6. OPTIONAL:
   
   
   1. Open the Terminal application from /Applications/Utilities:
      
      
      
   2. In the terminal, become root and delete the following files and directory: (Enter in the text after the %, which represents the shell prompt. This also assumes that the MASTER Mac drive is called "Macintosh HD")
      
      % sudo -s
      % rm /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/var/db/BootCache.playlist
      % rm /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/var/db/volinfo.database
      % rm -r /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/var/vm/swap*
      % cd /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/System/Library/Extensions ; rm -rdf BootCache.kext
      
      
   3. Quit out of the terminal application
      
      
      1. NOTE: If you have problems booting up with a Mac that was restored with the master disk image, use the terminal to delete the above files and recreate the master image using the steps below.
   
   
   
7. Launch Disk Utility from /Applications/Utilities
   
8. Select the disk that will be imaged from (the master hard disk):
   
   
   
9. Click the "Repair Disk" button to fix any file system errors on the disk. If there are file system errors on the disk, they will be replicated in the image that you create and BIC/asr may not be able to mount a disk restored from a disk image with file system errors.
   
   
   
10. From the "File" menu select New, Disk Image From Folder...
    1. NOTE: Do NOT select "Disk Image from (Select a Device)..." or you won't be able to block restore to any volume larger than the master hard disk!
       
       
    
    
11. Choose a location to save the image (not on the volume being imaged), give it a name, and set the Image Format to compressed. Make sure your master Mac is setup exactly how you want it. Click Save.
    
    
    
12. If you want to be able to verify the data restored, the image must be "Scanned for Restore" to add checksum data to the image
    1. In Disk Utility, under the Images menu item, select Scan Image for Restore...
       
       
    
    
13. Copy/Move the compressed and scanned image to the PSU Blast Image Config RestoreImages folder for easy access:
    
    
    
14. Master restore images can ALSO be stored on another hard disk, server volume, or via http download too. They're no longer restricted to just the RestoreImages folder. Read the demo run documentation for more information on how to access images on other volumes and sources.