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The Good News for Mac Lab Admins

damien barrett
Updated ·2 min read

With the release of new Intel Macs yesterday, the people who manage labs and classrooms full of Macs started asking questions.

Does this mean I need to have a PPC image for my PPC machines and an Intel image for my Intel Macs? What about NetRestore and NetBooting? Can these new Intel Macs even NetBoot? What about the lab management tool/tripwire Radmind?

There's some good news to report. Apple has shipped new Mac OS X 10.4.4 Server Admin Tools, in which there's an updated System Image Utility.app that can create NetBoot and NetInstall images for Intel-based Macs. Also, Mike Bombich has told us his most recent version of NetRestore 3.1.1 is a universal application that'll work on both PPC and Intel Macs.

From a mailing list post made by a Sr. Product Line Manager for Server & Storage Support at Apple:

The new Intel-based Macs use a next generation pre-boot technology developed by Intel called EFI. EFI provides a superior booting experience and includes features such as a larger ROM, richer graphics support, full IP stack, dynamic boot volume picker, quicker startup times and even some cool feature such as the ability to an Apple Remote to remotely control boot options.

One of the benefits of EFI is dramatically faster boot times for NetBoot systems. Our internal tests show that in most situations booting of an Intel-based Mac is 2-3 times faster than the older Open Firmware-based systems

To NetBoot or NetInstall an Intel-based Mac you need to deploy Mac OS X Server v10.4.4. Mac OS X Server v10.4.4 includes an updated System Image Utility for creating NetBoot and NetInstall images of Intel-based Macs. Separate disk images are required for PowerPC-based Macintosh computers and Intel-based Macintosh computer.

Some other tidbits:%uFFFD the open firmware password tools still work on Intel Macs that use EFI. And firewire target-disk mode should also still work. So, all our essential image-making and image-distribution tools still work. Yes, we'll have to separate Intel-Mac image, but that's not a bad chore. It's certainly better than image-making in the PC world, where sometimes every model computer requires its own image.