Automated OS X Imaging

Automagically create images for OS X computers using Radmind.

Contents

• Requirements
• Contact
• Purpose
• Usage
  • Options
• Technical
  • Sparse Images
• Config
  • Global
  • Image
• Update History

Download

Download the latest installer here!

Requirements

• Python 2.7.x (which you can download here)

Note: This project has not seen any significant updates in some time, and so does not use our common Management Tools package. There are currently no plans to integrate Management Tools into the Radmind Automatic Image Creator.

Contact

If you have any comments, questions, or other input, either file an issue or send us an email. Thanks!

Uninstall

To remove the Ramind Automatic Image Creator from your system, download the .dmg and run the "Uninstall Automagic Imaging [x.x.x]" package to uninstall it. (Note that the version indicated does not actually matter, as any of the uninstall packages will remove any installed version of the Radmind Automatic Image Creator).

Purpose

In an effort to streamline our imaging efforts, we created an automatic imaging system to interface with radmind. This system relies on you having radmind certificates set up and plenty of free disk space available.

Usage

To use the Radmind Automatic Image Creator, you must have your radmind server set up to use certificates for specific command files. For a guide on this process, see this guide.

$ radmind_auto_image_creator.py [-hvni] [-l log] [-c config] [-t tmp_dir] [-o out_dir] [-r rserver] [-C cert] [-I image] [-V volume] [-s sparse] [--persist-on-fail] [--persist-all]

Options

Option	Purpose
-h --help	Prints help message and quits.
-v --version	Prints only the version information and quits.
-n --no-log	Redirects logging to the console (stdio).
-l log --log log	Outputs log files to log instead of the default. (This is overridden by --no-log.)
-i --interactive	Runs the script in interactive mode.
-c config --config config	Use config as the input configuration file.
-t tmp_dir --tmp_dir tmp_dir	Use tmp_dir as the temporary directory for sparse images.
-o out-dir --out_dir out_dir	Use out_dir as the output directory for final, read-only images.
-r rserver --rserver rserver	Specify the radmind server address as rserver.
-C cert --cert cert	Use certificate cert to run radmind.
-I image --image-name image	Name the finished image image.
-V volume --volume-name volume	Name the mounted volume for the finished image volume.
-s sparse --sparse sparse	Try to use sparse as a starting point for radmind.
--persist-all	Prevent the script from deleting any sparse images.
--persist-on-fail	Prevent the script from deleting sparse images when radmind fails.

Image Names

Image names are generally given as something like "Staff" or "Student_Lab". These names would result in sparse images named Staff.sparseimage and Student_Lab.sparseimage respectively. The converted read-only disk images have a naming scheme of: YYYY.mm.dd_IMAGENAME_OSVERSION_OSBUILD.dmg, where:

• YYYY is the year
• mm is the two-digit month
• dd is the two-digit day
• IMAGENAME is the name of the image given via --image-name image
• OSVERSION is the version of the operating system (e.g. 10.9, 10.10)
• OSBUILD is the current build number

Volume Names

The volume name, given with --volume-name volume, will appear whenever the disk image is mounted. This can be useful if you name your volumes in a particular way (for example, all of our regular volumes are named "Mac OS X"). Additionally, if you like to keep bootable minimal disk images, you can add $VERSION and $BUILD to offer more information. We maintain a bootable disk image with a volume name given as Firewire $VERSION, and this (currently) shows up as "Firewire 10.10" when we see it in Finder.

Technical

We recommend setting up this imaging system on a computer with plenty of hard disk space. To create the images, the script creates an empty sparse disk image. Radmind is run relative to the root of this disk image, so the entire contents of the command file will be located locally. After radmind completes successfully, the disk image will be converted to a read-only format and compressed.

Sparse Images

The Automated Radmind Image Creator uses sparse images to produce images. A sparse image is a type of disk image that is expandable, meaning that you can mount it and then add files to it and it won't stop you (although you can specify a maximum size).

In our environment, we use --persist-all to keep all sparse images that are created. This is useful because we can then use --sparse to use those sparse images in the future. This allows the imaging process to take less time than if it ran from scratch every time (and is probably better on your storage media due to fewer rewrites).

Config

The configuration file serves as an easy way to run multiple images consecutively with minimal user interaction. There are two types of sections for the config file: Global and Image.

Global

[Global]
tmp_dir: /tmp
out_dir: /path/to/images
rserver: radmind.example.com

The Global section has three keys that are all required:

• tmp_dir: the directory to store sparse images in
• out_dir: the directory to put the finished read-only disk images
• rserver: the address of the radmind server being used

Image

[My Image]
cert: /path/to/certificate.pem
volume: OS X $VERSION-$BUILD

You can have any number of image sections, provided you have enough certificates to accommodate them all. The name of the image section should actually be whatever your image will be called, and it should have both a certificate path and a name for the volume. The shortcuts for version and build numbers can be used in the volume designator.

Update History

This is a short, reverse-chronological summary of the updates to this project.

Date	Version	Update Description
2014-06-26	1.4.4	More try/except blocks.
2014-06-16	1.4.3	Fixed descriptor update.
2014-06-16	1.4.2	Set number of file descriptors; bug fixes.
2014-06-13	1.4.1	Improved persist functionality.
2014-06-13	1.4.0	Can now resume radmind from a sparse image.
2014-06-11	1.3.0	Now compresses final read-only disk image.
2014-06-11	1.2.5	Logging includes last five lines of file for failed radmind process.
2014-06-10	1.2.4	Multiple unmount attempts; delete failed images; fixed image renaming.
2014-06-09	1.2.3	Logging now includes more information.
2014-06-09	1.2.2	Corrected typo.
2014-06-09	1.2.1	Corrected typo.
2014-06-09	1.2.0	Can now use $VERSION in the volume name to substitute OS version.
2014-06-06	1.1.2	Updated repository url in setup.py.
2014-06-05	1.1.1	Wrapped delicate code in try/except blocks.
2014-06-05	1.1.0	Added manual and interactive modes of input.
2014-06-03	1.0.9	Attempts to force detach disks when unmount fails.
2014-06-03	1.0.8	Adjusted hardlinks.
2014-06-03	1.0.7	Improved logging and unmounting.
2014-06-03	1.0.6	Attempts to unmount multiple times (to give time for disk unlock).
2014-06-03	1.0.5	Radmind logging.
2014-06-02	1.0.4	Implements xhooks post-maintenance properly.
2014-05-30	1.0.3	More string formatting.
2014-05-30	1.0.2	Improper string formatting fixed.
2014-05-30	1.0.1	Adds radmind trigger files for xhooks.
2014-05-30	1.0	Updated logging output.
2014-05-30	0.9.10	fsdiff outfile is now removed if it already exists.
2014-05-30	0.9.9	Fixed the conversion methods so they work properly.
2014-05-30	0.9.8	Forgot .path in a method call.
2014-05-30	0.9.7	Further typo fixes.
2014-05-30	0.9.6	Fixed a formatting typo.
2014-05-30	0.9.5	Unmounts failed images before aborting.
2014-05-30	0.9.4	Fixed bless issues.
2014-05-30	0.9.3	More typos.
2014-05-30	0.9.2	Typo adjustment.
2014-05-30	0.9.1	Renamed temporary files.
2014-05-30	0.9	Improved logging verbosity.
2014-05-30	0.7.3	Many minor adjustments to improve stability.
2014-05-30	0.7	Blessing, ownership, error-checking, versioning all improved. Radmind calls revised.
2014-05-28	0.2.2	Fixed issue where nested imports and some calls weren't working.
2014-05-28	0.2	Started work on wrapper script.
2014-05-27	0.2	Bless capabilities added.
2014-05-27	0.2	Image conversion now supported.
2014-05-23	0.1	Added setup.py.
2014-05-23	0.1	Project started with basic image handling.