Apple 10.6 manual  Prepare the disks and partitions on the target computer

However, if you are reinstalling regularly, or if you are creating an external Firewire drive-based installation to take to various computers, or if you need some other kind mass distribution (such as clustered Xserves without DVD drives installed), this method can be very efficient.

This method is suited to installing on computers that you do not have easy physical access to. With sufficient preparation, this method can be modified for easy mass deployment of licensed copies of Mac OS X Server.

To use this method, you must have an existing installation of some kind on the computer. It is intended for environments where a level of existing infrastructure of Mac OS X Server is present, and might be unsuitable for a first server installation.

To start from an alternate partition, there are four basic steps.

Step 1: Prepare the disks and partitions on the target computer.

Before you proceed, you must have at least two partitions on the target computer. The first is the initial and final startup partition; the second is the temporary installer partition. You can use a single disk with multiple partitions or you can use multiple disks. You use Disk Utility to prepare the disks.

For more information about preparing and partitioning a hard disk, see the Disk Utility help.

Step 2: Create a restorable image of the Install DVD.

This step doesn’t need to be done on the target computer. It can be done on an administrator computer, but there must be enough free space to image the entire Install DVD. See “To create an image of the Install DVD” on page 86.

Step 3: Restore the image to the alternate partition.

You can restore the disk image to a partition within the computer or to an external hard disk. When complete, the restored partition functions like the Install DVD. Make sure the alternate partition is at least the size of the disk image. See “To restore the image to a free volume” on page 87.

Step 4: Select the alternate partition as the startup disk.

After the partition is restored, it’s a startup and installer disk for your server. Now start up the computer from that partition. After the computer is running, it is a Mac OS X Server installer, exactly as if you had started the computer from the DVD.

To create an image of the Install DVD

1Insert the Install DVD.

2Launch Disk Utility.

3Select the first session icon under the optical drive icon.

This is in the list of devices on the left side of the window.

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Chapter 5    Installation and Deployment