Clone to network, restore to many simultaneously

[antonino]

Hi there;

I need to setup a computer lab that has 30 computers. I will setup one of the Mac with OS X, add Office and other software. Then, I want to copy (backup/clone) the HD of that computer to our Mac server – it has OS X. Finally, I want to restore the image to the other computers at the same time. In this way, I will have all the computers exactly the same. This will save me a lot of time.

Can I do that?


Thanks for your time

Antonino Carrubba
Los Angeles Valley College

[dnanian]

Unfortunately, we don't really have a way to "network blast" (multicast) an image to a lot of computers at once... however, you can do something similar to this with a little manual intervention.

First, you'll create the disk image you want with SuperDuper!

Then, if you've got a way to netboot the computers, or have enough Panther installation CDs (just the first one) to get the computers to boot to a basic setup:

- Run Disk Utility (if you're using a Panther install CD, you can run Disk Utility from the installer's Application menu.
- Choose "Restore", and then specify the location of the DMG (put it on the server, in an accessible place from an HTTP request, such as the root of a machine's web site).
- Repeat for each machine -- they can all, of course, be restoring at the same time.

Hope that helps give you some ideas!