[MacTUG] Slow deploystudio netboot

[Donald Duff-McCracken]

Hi there 1:49

In preparation for a lab refresh, I recently have picked up some new imacs and getting some big grief with deploystudio. I can build a netboot set from a new mac, and this netboot set works fine with my older macs (I have tried a 1 year old aluminum mac and a white imac). However when I use this netboot set to boot the mac I built it from — the one mac you would think would for sure like this netboot set) it hangs before I can do anything! Arrgh!!!

Eventually after about 12 minutes the Deploystudio runtime window appears but the process then stops. The boot process is slow right from the beginning. Frequently the icon that spins as the machine is booting will halt for long periods (a minute or so). This 12 minutes until the window appears is about 8 times longer than it should be (for example the white imac can get to the same point in only 90 seconds). I cannot use the mouse or keyboard. Repeatedly tried this and left the machine alone for a while to see if something is just running slow, but no such luck. I doubt I am having a network problem, as a) I have copied large files onto this mac fine from the network, b) I am using the same cable for both test clients, and c) I have done other netboot type actions with this imac (such as netbooting from a netinstall I made on the same mac server I have deploystudio on) and it has behaved properly in this regard.

The screen shot (a photo I took) shows that the information looks very ‘normal’ except for the lengths of time it is taking. The processes listed are taking about 2 minutes whereas on other machines it is taking about 10 seconds!

[cid:3352198282_1346102]

Any suggestions where to start? It is most frustrating and confusing that the same netboot image will work on macs that it was not created from. I do have some other new imacs in storage that I intend to pull out to see it it is just this machine, but I am doubtful that this is the case.

Thanks...
don


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Donald Duff-McCracken
Technical Services Manager
Mapping, Analysis & Design
Faculty of Environmental Studies
University of Waterloo
(519) 888-4567 x32151
http://www.fes.uwaterloo.ca/computing/people/don.html
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