This offers an excellent way to deploy Mac OS X configurations, complete with installed applications and preferences, directly onto the hard drives of Mac clients. If a hard drive image was used, NetInstall will clone that image onto the client's internal hard drive. If install media is used as the source for the image, NetInstall will behave much as if a user had booted from the install CD/DVD and will go through the standard installation process. NetInstall images can be made from the Mac OS X install media or from an existing hard drive. The client will then proceed with the standard process for installing Mac OS X. This utility will then install either the contents of an existing disk image onto the client's hard drive or it will access a network-based copy of the Mac OS X install CD/DVD. Instead, clients will boot into the Mac OS X installer utility. The difference is that after NetInstall clients process the Mac OS X boot and kernel files, they do not continue booting from a Mac OS X disk image. In addition to NetBoot, Mac OS X Server also provides NetInstall, which functions very much like NetBoot. These characteristics make NetBoot an excellent platform for computers used in classrooms, computer labs and kiosks. NetBoot delivers a consistent configuration that users can't permanently modify, and the ability for administrators to modify a NetBoot disk image that can be deployed to all NetBoot clients. The shadow file is destroyed when the computer is shut down or rebooted, so that the NetBoot client always returns to the configuration of the disk image. The shadow file allows system processes and applications that need to modify files as part of their operation to do so. Technicians can easily boot from a NetBoot image that includes various troubleshooting tools.Īll files that are created or modified during a NetBoot session - including those created or modified by users, applications or the operating system - are written to a shadow file stored either on the client's internal hard drive or on the server hosting the image. It can also provide an alternative boot mechanism if a Mac's internal hard drive fails or for troubleshooting problems. This allows consistency across large numbers of machines without software or updates having to be physically deployed on those clients. NetBoot allows Mac clients to start and run applications using a server-hosted disk image instead of a physically mounted drive. Apple's NetBoot technology has been a staple part of Mac OS X Server since the latter's original release.
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