Creating never booted images – 10.8 – InstaDMG

I’m going to run through the process of creating a never booted image using InstaDMG on Mac OS X 10.8, Once this has been done it will be ready to deploy using Deploystudio.

First, you will need to ensure that you have the Command Line Tools installed, you can download them from the Apple Developer site

You will need to create an account, but you don’t need to sign up for any of the paid programs to gain access to the tools we need

Go here to register

developer.apple.com/programs/register/

Once registered, click on the link below, this will take you to the downloads page, where you can get the Command Line Tools, we are after the Command Line Tools for OS X Mountain Lion

Command Line Tools (OS X Mountain Lion) for Xcode – January 2013

it’s roughly 120MB download, once you have it, install the package and we can get started.

First, open Terminal, then enter the following, this will change to your home directory, create an InstaDMG folder, then move you into the newly created folder

cd ; mkdir InstaDMG ; cd InstaDMG

next you will need to download InstaDMG, you do this by entering the following command into Terminal

svn checkout http://instadmg.googlecode.com/svn/trunk .

this shouldn’t take long, if you already have InstaDMG installed from a while ago, then it will be worth updating it, you can do this by entering the following into Terminal

cd ~/InstaDMG/
svn update

Next, you need to move your copy of the 10.8 InstallESD.dmg file into the InstaDMG installer disc folder

You need to have the Install Mac OS X Mountain Lion app in /Applications, if you don’t then you need to download it from the Mac App Store

When you have it, open Terminal and enter the following

sudo cp /Applications/Install OS X Mountain Lion/Contents/SharedSupport/InstallESD.dmg ~/InstaDMG/InstallerFiles/InstallerDiscs/

Next you need to make a change to the catalog file (10.8_vanilla.catalog) located at

~/InstaDMG/AddOns/InstaUp2Date/CatalogFiles

At the time of writing this points to an older Java installation file which will cause errors when trying to create the image, so we need to edit this, open Terminal and enter the following

nano ~/InstaDMG/AddOns/InstaUp2Date/CatalogFiles/10.8_vanilla.catalog

delete this line

Java for OS X 2012-006  http://support.apple.com/downloads/DL1572/en_US/JavaForOSX.dmg  sha1:eff777cdc39b4e3336b3477f60e8ad769ded8532

replace with this line

Java for OS X 2013-002 http://support.apple.com/downloads/DL1572/en_US/JavaForOSX2013-002.dmg sha1:47e38cf089a6a7bba9e2b0b387fe09e2b77e10a6

make sure there are tabs rather than spaces between each line, otherwise it will error when trying to build the image

then press CTRL X

then Y

then ENTER

this saves the file and you shouldn’t encounter any problems

next we need to make the image, which is all done in Terminal, so enter the following

cd ~/InstaDMG/AddOns/InstaUp2Date/

sudo ./instaUp2Date.py -p 10.8_vanilla

this took around 30 minutes on a 2012 MacBook Pro, times will vary on different models, but this should give you a rough idea

Managed Preferences – Cache Flush

The other day I was trying to access some restricted preferences on a 10.6 client, bound to a 10.6 Server that no longer existed, and because of this, I had no way of removing the restrictions

Or so I thought, thankfully Apple had provided a Knowledge Base article detailing how to manually flush the cache, enabling access to the previously restricted preferences.

To do this, I opened up Terminal and input the following command all on one line

dscl . -list Computers | grep -v "^localhost$" | while read computer_name ; 
do sudo dscl . -delete Computers/"$computer_name" ; done

This worked, I was able to amend the settings needed, I have provided the link to the Apple page below, in case you need information on how to do this on earlier OS’s

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3540

System Preferences – Software Updates – 10.8

Software Updates have now been incorporated into the Mac App Store, which is not something I’m a massive fan of, but I can see why it’s been done.

The good news is that you can still update the System software using the softwareupdate command in Terminal, so nothings been broken by this change.

Gone is the option to choose how regularly your machine checks for updates.

There are now the following options

Automatically check for updates – tick this if you want to be notified when new updates are available.

Download newly available updates in the background – tick this if you have an unlimited broadband/data connection, with some updates being a couple of GB in size now, its not wise to leave this checked with a limited plan, as you could go over without realising.

Install system data files and security updates – does what it says on the tin.

Automatically download apps purchased on other Macs – I leave this unticked as I prefer to choose what takes up my hard drive space on each machine, rather than having all apps install on all machines automatically.

 

System Preferences – Mail, Contacts & Calendar – 10.8

The Mail, Calendar & Contacts preference is the place to set up all of your e-mail and Calendar accounts, it now also has the added Social Media accounts such as Twitter, Facebook, Flickr & Vimeo.

Adding these accounts makes it a lot simpler to upload or share stuff through these sites, system wide.

 

System Preferences – Energy Saver – 10.8

The Energy Saver preference has a new addition – Power Nap!

This enables your Mac to check for e-mail, calendar and iCloud updates whilst asleep, which is great, as it saves on syncing time when awaking a machine, the downside however is that it uses more power than the conventional sleep mode, so it’s best to use it only when plugged into the mains.

System Preferences – Displays – 10.8

The Displays preference has changed a bit, with the best feature being the addition of the AirPlay mirroring feature.

If you have an Apple TV then you can mirror your Mac’s Desktop to your TV screen, which is great for simplifying presentations.

You could have an Apple TV hooked up to a Projector or a Large Screen TV, and have people wirelessly connect to them, preventing the messing around with VGA Cables or forgotten adapters.

System Preferences – Notifications – 10.8

A brand new System Preference for 10.8 is the Notifications Preference.

This is essentially just the same as the one on iOS, and gives you options over what type of alerts you receive from all of the various applications on your Mac

Usually the default options for each app are fine, the one thing I would recommend doing however is re-arranging the list so that the apps important to you are at the top of the Notification Center

If you haven’t discovered the Notification Center yet, its accessed by clicking on the notification icon in the menu bar, the 3 dots and 3 lines in the very top right hand corner.

If you have set up your Facebook account, then you will also have a box at the top of this to post instantly to Facebook.

System Preferences – Security & Privacy – 10.8

 

So, the major change in 10.8 is the default restrictions on which applications can be installed, which can prevent installation of apps such as Microsoft Office and some other popular software.

To enable software from all developers, make sure that under ‘Allow applications downloaded from:’ the button next to ‘Anywhere’ is selected

I’d also recommend ticking the box next to ‘Require password after sleep or screen saver begins’ to prevent unauthorised use of your machine

In the FileVault tab you have the option of encrypting your whole system drive, this is great on a laptop as it will prevent access before even booting & will disable Target Disk Mode, make sure you have a note of the Recovery Key that is displayed when enabling this, as this will be the only way you could access the machine if you forgot your password.

The Privacy tab now has info on which apps have requested access to your contacts, location service info, access to Facebook, and the option to send diagnostic data to Apple

System Preferences – Dock – 10.8

 

As with last weeks, there isn’t too much to be said about the Dock

 

I would recommend ticking the box next to ‘Automatically hide and show the Dock’ if you happen to be using your Mac as a presentation machine though, it looks a little tidier/more professional than having the Dock displayed

 

If you are always opening multiple applications windows however, and then end up minimizing them and your Dock just ends up getting smaller and smaller then I would recommend ticking the box next to ‘Minimize windows into applications icon’ as this will help keep your Dock uncluttered.

To restore the window, then all you need to do is click on the application icon and it will restore your last minimised window

If you do this with multiple windows in the same application then to open windows that were minimised earlier then you just right click (CTRL click) on the application icon and choose the window from the list

System Preferences – Desktop & Screen Saver – 10.8

 

There isn’t too much to say about this, it’s all pretty straight forward, but for an unusual noticeboard set up you could try the following

Hook a Mac Mini up to a TV via HDMI

Set up a folder on the Mini to have notices in Image formats (Use Preview to Export PDF Posters into JPG or PNG format)

Set the machine to log in automatically

Then go to System Preferences and then Desktop & Screen Saver

Choose the Screen Saver tab

Click on the Origami or Sliding Panels Slideshow

Click on the drop down menu next to Source and choose your noticeboard images folder

Tick the box next to ‘Shuffle slide order’ for a random order each time

Next to ‘Start After’ choose 1 minute from the drop down menu

Then when you reboot the machine, it will log in and after 1 minute start displaying your notices in a different way to you may have done previously