Netboot set creation failures using 10.6.8 image

macninja
New Contributor

I wanted to share with everyone a problem I have been seeing and would like to know if anyone else has encountered it.

I have had consistent failures when attempting to create a netboot set from the latest fully patched version of 10.6.8. After creating the netboot set and booting a computer to it the process would halt and the screen would display a "do not enter" sign (a circle with a diagonal line through it). According to Apple's error descriptions this means that the computer can not load the netboot image.

I made close to 20 attempts at creating a working netboot set from 10.6.8, each time testing different image creation methods (fully Apple workflow, Casper Netinstall Creator, a mix of the two, etc.) and each time I had the same problem. I tried creating netboot images from two different computers and neither worked. I should point out that I used the same hardware to create a 10.6.8 netboot set in December. I can only assume that some update released since December has caused this issue.

The problem was not with the Netboot server- I tried it on two different ones and did packet traces that showed that the boot process was working. I could also use older 10.6.8 netboot sets without a hitch.

After failing to create a new 10.6.8 netboot set I used my normal procedure (https://jamfnation.jamfsoftware.com/article.html?id=63) to create a Lion netboot set and it worked perfectly.

Of course with the Lion netboot set I no longer require 10.6.8 netboot images but I was curious to see if I was the only one to run up against this problem.

3 REPLIES 3

dpertschi
Valued Contributor

Looks like a post I could have written...

Difference being that my client machines do not display that halt icon, but simply fail to netboot and revert to the local drive. I have a call in right now with our network guys to help me to do the packet tracing.

Tomorrow I'll follow that article with 10.7.3 and report back Monday.

Darrin

dpertschi
Valued Contributor

Moving forward with a 10.7.3 Netboot set built per JAMF KB's did indeed work the first time out of the gate. I was very excited.

However subsequent attempts have been unsuccessful. Looking carefully at server and client logs; I've got this...

SEVER LOG
2/21/12 6:49:25 AM bootpd[73976] BSDP INFORM [en1] 1,c8:2a:14:31:70:xx NetBoot005 arch=i386 sysid=iMac12,2
2/21/12 6:49:25 AM bootpd[73976] NetBoot: [1,c8:2a:14:31:70:xx] BSDP ACK[LIST] sent 10.xx.xx.131 pktsize 305
2/21/12 6:49:25 AM bootpd[73976] service time 0.000138 seconds
2/21/12 6:49:25 AM bootpd[73976] BSDP INFORM [en1] 1,c8:2a:14:31:70:xx NetBoot005 arch=i386 sysid=iMac12,2
2/21/12 6:49:25 AM bootpd[73976] replyfile /private/tftpboot/NetBoot/NetBootSP0/CasperNetBootSIU.nbi/i386/booter
2/21/12 6:49:25 AM bootpd[73976] NetBoot: [1,c8:2a:14:31:70:xx] BSDP ACK[SELECT] sent 10.xx.xx.131 pktsize 451

CLIENT LOG
2/21/12 6:49:37 AM com.apple.kextd[10] /Volumes/Netboot HD: unrecognized bootcaches.plist data; skipping.

Can anyone advise what this client log entry may suggest?

thanks,
Darrin

TheSeans
New Contributor

We are running into the same issue. It does seem to be something with the new 10.6.8 combo update.