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Secret World of Nerds
Radmind Webmin Module
Mac OS X Labs Deployment Project
afp548.com
University of Utah's Mac OS Documentation
Mike Bombich's OS X Software and Tips
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Published On: May 07, 2004 10:47 PM
Total entries in this category:
Published On: May 07, 2004 10:47 PM
Using radmind to upgrade from 10.2.x to 10.3.x - UPDATE
One of the main reasons I started this blog was to
communicate my adventures in using radmind to upgrade machines from 10.2.x to
10.3.x. It turned out not to be trivial, so I wanted to share my experiences so
others could benefit.
It's far past time for an update on my progress.
So far I have successfully upgraded about 85 machines from 10.2.6 to 10.3.1 or 10.3.2 using radmind. I continue to upgrade a few each week. I will have moved most of our OS X boxes to Panther before the end of January.
It's far past time for an update on my progress.
So far I have successfully upgraded about 85 machines from 10.2.6 to 10.3.1 or 10.3.2 using radmind. I continue to upgrade a few each week. I will have moved most of our OS X boxes to Panther before the end of January.
The key
findings:
1) Make sure your command files are good! If the update fails because of a problem with a command file you can end up with a non-bootable disk.
2) Make sure your run_radmind script turns off the cron daemon while it runs. See the run_radmind script posted elsewhere on this weblog for details. If cron tries to run a task during the update, you can get a segment fault or worse.
3) Make sure your command files are free of any pre-Panther stuff - in other words, don't have a 10.3.x base with an old Safari overload or a (10.2) Developer tools overload, etc, etc. I haven't seen any problems with including overloads of non-Apple applications created on top of Jaguar, but your mileage may vary.
4) Don't try to do this update using the Radmind Assistant or by manually running the radmind tools from a shell prompt. Do it as part of a logout hook script or a script run by cron when no-one is logged in, or a StartupItem. And then leave the machine alone while it updates. At Feature Animation, a radmind-ed update from 10.2.6 to 10.3.1 took about 60-90 minutes. I haven't timed a 10.2.6 to 10.3.2 update, which is what we are doing now, but I see no reason to believe the times wouldn't be similar.
5) Even if everything goes well, at the end of my run_radmind script, it attempts to restart but fails, usually with a segment fault. If you then just do a hard restart (via the restart button or power button) it comes up fine in Panther.
1) Make sure your command files are good! If the update fails because of a problem with a command file you can end up with a non-bootable disk.
2) Make sure your run_radmind script turns off the cron daemon while it runs. See the run_radmind script posted elsewhere on this weblog for details. If cron tries to run a task during the update, you can get a segment fault or worse.
3) Make sure your command files are free of any pre-Panther stuff - in other words, don't have a 10.3.x base with an old Safari overload or a (10.2) Developer tools overload, etc, etc. I haven't seen any problems with including overloads of non-Apple applications created on top of Jaguar, but your mileage may vary.
4) Don't try to do this update using the Radmind Assistant or by manually running the radmind tools from a shell prompt. Do it as part of a logout hook script or a script run by cron when no-one is logged in, or a StartupItem. And then leave the machine alone while it updates. At Feature Animation, a radmind-ed update from 10.2.6 to 10.3.1 took about 60-90 minutes. I haven't timed a 10.2.6 to 10.3.2 update, which is what we are doing now, but I see no reason to believe the times wouldn't be similar.
5) Even if everything goes well, at the end of my run_radmind script, it attempts to restart but fails, usually with a segment fault. If you then just do a hard restart (via the restart button or power button) it comes up fine in Panther.
Posted: Sat - January 17, 2004 at 05:38 PM