Hey all, Im having a hard time with this. I manage a school lab full of 30 imacs. Some are late 2015, some are late 2014. I want to create an image of a OSX El Capitan installation WITH 3rd party programs and user settings. I plan to use this image from a External USB hard drive, but I am seeing contradicting instructions out there as to how to do this. I want to use the image as a backup image so that if any of them go bad, I will have a drive that I can rely on. Can you all point me in the right direction or tell me what to do?
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How to clone an imac
- Thread starter jbreiman
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Isn't there a Mac Server app that allows you to manage all the computers. There is also remote login - which allows you to spy on kids? ^^
Post above mentions an app that can do all this -- i.e., set up a number of computers with identical software. Only problem is -- I forgot the name!
Here's another way to do it:
- Take an empty external drive
- Put a clean copy of the OS onto it.
- Boot from the clean install, set up "minimal account" (no Apple ID, etc.) so that you can boot into it
- Install 3rd party applications as desired
- Put CarbonCopyCloner onto the drive
- Get everything "adjusted" as to how you want it to appear to end users.
Now, you can take this around to each Mac, boot from the external, and use CCC to "clone over" the contents to each Mac in succession.
Then, each user will still be able to create their own "new" account "from scratch", but all the apps will be there, ready to go.
Here's another way to do it:
- Take an empty external drive
- Put a clean copy of the OS onto it.
- Boot from the clean install, set up "minimal account" (no Apple ID, etc.) so that you can boot into it
- Install 3rd party applications as desired
- Put CarbonCopyCloner onto the drive
- Get everything "adjusted" as to how you want it to appear to end users.
Now, you can take this around to each Mac, boot from the external, and use CCC to "clone over" the contents to each Mac in succession.
Then, each user will still be able to create their own "new" account "from scratch", but all the apps will be there, ready to go.
https://www.apple.com/support/osxserver/systemimaging/
I think the easiest way would be to install OS X Server edition on your Mac, then make a Netinstall image and use Server to install that to the remote machines.
Thanks guys, I think i will be able to get this. Unfortunately I dont have a server, so I will have to make one, or make something work like one!
@Fishrrman - How do you install a clean copy of the El Capitan onto the external HDD? I have the El Capitan instaler which I yanked from the App store, can I use that?
@Fishrrman - How do you install a clean copy of the El Capitan onto the external HDD? I have the El Capitan instaler which I yanked from the App store, can I use that?
You don't need server hardware to run OS X Server edition. You can install it on any Mac and do what you need from that computer. So you can use an existing Mac and just install the Server upgrade to it and off you go.