This page was placed here to include some information about making netboot with Mac OS X Server edition. I have a page for setting up netbooting with Linux that is rather detailed if you would rather view it instead.

William P McGonigle's NetBoot Web Site has a number of documents and links related to this process. Many of them are very good, and some of the ones I liked can be found on my Documents and Links page.. William McGonigle can be reached via e-mail with William.P.McGonigle@HITCHCOCK.ORG and I can be reached via email with dugan@passwall.com. (Realize, I am very busy, and may not have time to respond to all e-mail messages.)

The normal set up (procedure): (incomplete, may need revision)

1. Acquire a G3 or later Mac.
2. Buy Mac OS X Server with Mac OS X NetBoot software. (If you do not wish to buy a copy of Mac OS X, then you may check out Alistair Riddell's web site which offers information on how to make this work without the server software. (His does still require a recent copy of Mac OS, and has the same restrictions for hardware as Apple supported netbooting, but is an alternative if you are interested.)
3. Obtain a number of IP addresses equal to the total number of ethernet interfaces on your server plus the number of net booting clients you wish to serve.
4. Obtain all of the networking information for your network. (I.E. Subnet Mask, Gateway/router, DNS, Time Server (if you have one), NetInfo Server, and determine if this server will be acting as a router and seeding the network for a zone, or another network device will be doing this. If this machine will seed the network, make sure you obtain a range to seed from your network administrator.
5. Format the HD on your G3 for the Mac OS X File System, and make sure you either:
   1. Provide a separate HFS+ (Extended) formatted partition with more than 1.5GB of disk space just for the Net-Booting software (bad idea to use a partition on the Mac OS X System disk since many Net-Booting Macs using image files on the same disk as the Mac OS X server shall cause a great deal of disk thrashing when the heads all seek between the images being read, and the files being used by the server.)
   2. Provide a separate drive formatted for HFS+ dedicated for use by only by the Net Booting Macs.
   3. Provide a Hardware Based RAID box that can connect to a separate SCSI bus dedicated for use with the Net-Booting Macs and have its logical volume formatted as HFS+ (extended).
6. Install the Mac OS X Server software onto the Volume you have set aside for Mac OS X Server, not the volume described above for the Net-Booting software that was formatted as HFS+ (extended) system. (Realize this volume chosen cannot be used as the volume that contains your Macintosh Net-booting Images, since it will need to be a HFS+ based volume and the Mac OS X server will modify the format of the volume it is being installed upon to something different (UFS) than what you format it before installation.)
7. Configure the networking of the server as you need it.
8. Install the Net Boot Manager software, and specify the HFS+ volume you set aside for the Net-Booting software.
9. Configure the Networking for the server again (it should walk you through it. Enable Net-Booting on the interfaces from which you want your clients to make their requests. (If you have one interface, then you will only have one choice. When you choose to NetBoot on an interface, it will grey out the TCP option and File-Sharing option, but will force them on. They are required for Net-booting, and though they are grayed out , they are on when you enable Net-Booting.)
10. After the configuration is finished, you will need to reboot.
11. After reboot, your server should be patched with the latest patch for Mac OS X. (As of the writing of this, the latest was 1.0-2 and could be found here for download.)
12. Reboot again after patch is installed.
13. Add a new user to your server that is not an administrator.
14. Grant this user Net Boot Manager access, and make sure they are in the same group as the files that were stored in the HFS+ partition so they can modify them.
15. Boot up the client and connect to the server by holding down the N key during reboot, or changing Startup Device control panel to deal with network booting.
16. You may need to authenticate yourself against the server with a valid server username that is a member of the NetBoot Manager group.
17. Run and configure the NetBoot Manager software by using the Chooser on the booted Mac NC to mount up the share from the server.
18. This finishes the basic set up of the Net Booting Server.

Suggestions that may or may not be necessary depending upon your needs:
• Go to get the latest copy of NetBoot Desktop Admin if you wish to use a nice tool to configure more things on your net booting server.
• Check out a copy of Macintosh Manager and see if it is something you can use too as well as the Macintosh Management Server

Comments and/or suggestions?: Email me at: dugan@passwall.com(Realize that I am very busy, and may not have time to respond to all E-mail messages. If you include NETBOOT MACNC (all Caps) as beginning it is more likely to get my attention... ;-)

DISCLAIMER:With the understandings for the use of a tool comes the responsibility in knowing how to use it without causing damage or harm. A tool can be used for good or evil, and you are responsible for your choice and the consequences of that choice in the use of any tool at your disposal.

I do not claim this to be free of bugs or defects, and you use this at your own risk.

I take no responsibility for any user's actions or inactions in following or not following any part or whole of any suggestions found on this page. If any user finds a loss of data, destruction of hardware, Alien Cattle mutilations, sightings of Elvis (ghost or body), loss of sanity, loss of insanity, worldly possessions, or non-worldly possessions as a result of following in part, or in whole any of the preceding or proceeding information, they assume any risks or responsibilities in whole for their decision(s). So, if you break something with one of your decisions that was in part or whole derived from information on this page, do not blame me or find me responsible or accountable for it in any way.

There should be no charge requested from me to you for this information, and so if you decide that you want any money back for deciding later that you did not really want this information after all, you will need to take that up with the person that charged you money. I will not offer you any compensation for your purchase since I was never compensated by you.`

It should be restated that *you* take all of the risks, and assume all of the responsibility for following, in part or in whole any information obtained from this document. I do not care if your dog continuously barks at you, or the sky becomes too blue, or nuclear war breaks out as a result of you following any of this information. It will all be your fault since you assume all of the risks, so neeener, neeener-neeeener. :-P

(C)1999,2000,2001,2002,2003,2004 By Michael Egan extended to all works not explicitly credited to other people within these documents. Permission to duplicate content on these pages not explicitly credited to others is granted so long as you give me credit for the work I have contributed and links are provided to refer to this original site if it is still available. I cannot extend permission to you to re-re-publish quoted words from people who have submitted solutions, posed questions or added clarification. If you wish to use their content, you should contact each person for permission to re-re-publish their included comments. (I have retained their permission, but never asked to extend it for others.)

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Apple Computers is a registered trademark of Apple computers.

Macintosh OS X, Macintosh OS 8, Mac OS X, Mac OS 8, Mac OS 9 All refer to Operating Systems created and controlled by Apple Computers. (No disk image files for net booting, or other proprietary programs legally controlled by Apple are available for download from this collection of pages made by me. No links are knowingly created on these pages that direct users to other pages that offer copyrighted software being distributed illegally. If you find a link on pages with this diclaimer that take you to a site that offers software that is illegally offered, feel free to let me know so that I may update my links to not include them.)

Other mentioned systems and products may be owned, patented, copyrighted, trademarked, or in some way legally controlled by their respective owners.

This information is provided with intent to inform users of protocols, procedures used in Net Booting a Macintosh Client, and solutions to the problems defined in this document.

If you have complaint about content provided, and wish to have trademark, copyright, patent, or other legal information explicitly provided here where a product you produce is listed, or have other complaints about this that may be legal, let me know before calling your lawyer: I am flexible.