Making Custom .dmg Images

Looks like the new kid on the block AutoDMG will be superceding InstaDMG as the preferred image maker of OSX clean never booted images. It’s currently a development product nearing a final release. It has a GUI front end which makes it super simple.

It’s hosted on GitHub and you can download the latest 1.4.4 dmg version here file here. Make sure you keep updated with the latest versions.

  1. In DMG Canvas, add the background image by clicking Background Add Image. Add the file and folder shortcut. Tip: Create a custom icon for the DMG file, see Apple’s instructions.
  2. This is a short tutorial for how to do the custom DMG Background Image.
  3. With DMG Canvas, creating backgrounds is easy. Just drop in images, add customized text, and you’re done. Maximum compatibility. DMG Canvas creates disk images that work seamlessly on any version of OS X. Say goodbye to compatibility issues. Retina ready. DMG Canvas supports Retina displays on OS X.

To make the window background fit the image, click “Fit Image”. Since lots of pretty background templates are provided in this Mac DMG creator, you can also simply pick one from them: click the “Template” icon on the top toolbar, you’ll enter the “Template” interface, then choose the template you like as the background image. Make a custom yosemite install image on os x. Ask Question Asked 4 years, 5 months ago. I know that it's possible to create a custom OS X image, but I can't figure out how. Password Protected DMG Won't Mount After Yosemite Upgrade.

When building an image with AutoDMG the OSX version you are building on must match the image build – so building an OSX 10.9 image must be built on a OSX 10.9 Mac. AutoDMG can also build OSX 10.8.5 images. The OSX Yosemite 10.10 guide is here.

Download and Install AutoDMG

Download AutoDMG

Move to your Applications

Burn Dmg Image

Updating the OSX Mavericks Installer

Before you begin it is best to use the latest OSX Mavericks installer which is currently at 10.9.4 upgrade it hereBuild 13D65, download it via but don’t install, the installer location will override the previous installer.

When the installer is finished downloading it will prompt you to install, just quit as we will be using the installer to build the image.

Creating an AutoDMG 10.9 Mavericks Up To Date Image

Launch AutoDMG

Drag in the Mavericks installer. If you can’t find it, do a spotlight search -“Install OS X Mavericks.app

AutoDMG will check for available updates – click the Download button to get them.

AutoDMG downloads any incremental updates.

When it’s done, Build the image.

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Save to a destination and let the building begin.

Dmg Image Reader

View Log

In the event where things don’t go so well check the log under the Window menu for the Why?.

All too easy!, you can deploy with DeployStudio or direct to disk with ASR.

With Apple Software Restore you can image a disk directly from the Terminal:

Change the source and target to suit.

What Is Dmg

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so.netbooting a netinstall.
any takers?

Of course, if you're lucky enough to have an Xserve setup with Netboot (using Netrestore Helper app to create this Netrestore boot image) then you can boot in a minute or so (instead of the 12-15min required by bootCD.
Or use a FireWire drive with a system on it to boot from.
Also, now a new option is Panther install CD1. In disk utility there is a new 'restore from image' option. this cd boots in a minute too.
cool
-x

true story.
Just lookin for some war stories on people who've setup netboot or install on os x server.

err or you could just boot the machine from another source firewire or cd (if ya got hell time to spare) and drop into terminal and go
sudo asr -source (drag in the source image) -target (drag in the target drive) -erase -nocheck
Done, lot quicker than messin round with netrestore, netrestore works really really well when it does fully automated restores over a network or from a restore dvd, i have built quite a few automated restore dvd's as in chuck in the dvd choose it as the startup disk have a coffee come back in about 25-30 mins and its restored only prob with this is the 4.4Gb limit take out 600 odd meg for the netrestore system and it gives you about 3.7-3.8Gig for an image

Does that copy over the resource forks?

yes it does. ASR does block file copies as long as the image being used is prepared as an ASR compatible image file. Best done as read only/compressed. Restores are much faster.
NetRestore is really a gui front end to the command line ASR that Apple included since 10.2.3

Dmg Image Is Corrupted

At our School District, I'm the Only Tech we have. After we put an order for 160 eMacs, I had to come up with an efficient method of cloning them. I found the following the best method for me. First I booted off the OSX 10.2 Server CD , this gave me access to a terminal session. Second I Attached a Firelite Firewire Drive with my image ( of course my image was done via CCC ). I also made a simple SH script to Automate the ASR command and switches. The whole process takes under 10 minutes for a 3.3 GB image. The following is my simple script , that helps ..

#!/bin/sh # ASR Image Bash Script # Manuel Plascencia Alhambra School District # Apple System Restores from 'Source' Macintosh_asr.dmg to 'target' /Volumes/Macintosh HD/ (Make sure Target Volume has the correct name) # -erase 'erases target volume first' # -nocheck 'skips checksum' ( this will cut your cloning in half ) # -noprompt 'will continue cloning with other user interaction' asr -source Macintosh_asr.dmg -target /Volumes/Macintosh HD/ -erase -nocheck -noprompt #Put a Stupid message Echo Alhambra School District !!!! Echo Echo Done !!! Echo Echo Enjoy !!! #This will reboot machine once cloning is complete. #You will hear the reboot chime which will give you #notification of clone completion. Reboot

Script got screwed up , heres the script again below
Remember to chmod +x 'yourfile' after script is made.
This Script is assuming that the image is located in the same directory, and it is running of a firewire drive. From terminal prompt I type :
cd /Volumes/Firewire
./go ( I've named my script go , but to run it you must type ./ in front )
#!/bin/sh
# ASR Image Bash Script
# Manuel Plascencia Alhambra School District
# Apple System Restores from 'Source' Macintosh_asr.dmg to 'target' /Volumes/Macintosh HD/ (Make sure Target Volume has the correct name)
# -erase 'erases target volume first'
# -nocheck 'skips checksum' ( this will cut your cloning in half )
# -noprompt 'will continue cloning with other user interaction'
asr -source Macintosh_asr.dmg -target /Volumes/Macintosh HD/ -erase -nocheck -noprompt
#Put a Stupid message
Echo Alhambra School District !!!!
Echo Echo Done !!!
Echo Echo Enjoy !!!
#This will reboot machine once cloning is complete.
#You will hear the reboot chime which will give you
#notification of clone completion.
Reboot
#End Script
Hopes this helps someone.

don't you'd think you'd benefit from netbooting the install images, and installing them over the network, rather than lug a drive around?

Firewire drive fit in your pocket , and they weigh nothing . Besides all 150+ eMacs are in one location , in boxes. Netboot would be 4 times as slow and that is not including the Bandwidth that would be shared with X amount of eMacs , cloning would crawl unless i had a Gigabit Switch. in comparison, firewire is the Best solution.
If Symantec or Apple , made a Cloning program that would be close to ' PC GHOST' that would be awesome. Multicast Broadcast Cloning , Over a Gigabit Switch would be FAST. Or if Apple would include Firewire Over IP in the ROM then I could Daisy chain A bunch of emacs to one Firewire Drive . Theres So many ways just the Tech is not here ..

This method is all well and good, assuming that the machines are all Firewire enabled. What about older iMacs or the non-DV models. I was physically taking out the drives, putting them into a firewire bay and using Carbon Copy Cloner to clone them from a master drive.
Not only did this take hours (I did 65 iMacs), but added the possibility of damaging the machines.
We don't have an XServe or anything fancy at this particular school site, so is there some tricky command line work around?
Thanks,
M@

Create a bootup OSX CD as mentioned, boot up the old iMac from that CD, and connect up to a network share that has the image.

In that case i would netboot , or maybe create an image on a DVD-R thats bootable to a CLI , and start ASR.

? I am migrating to a powerbook and selling my G4 Tower. can i CCC my system and re-install the applications, etc. to my powerbook? Has anyone else done this and/or have an idea of going about it?
thanks in advance,
ken;

I've playing around with this for about a month and am really happy with the results. I work for a very large, well known software company and need to re-image my computers many times a day. I haven't found anything that works as fast as SuperDuper! Most of my images include applications that are installed on them, so they are frequently 4+ gigs in size. It takes about 25-30 mins to create the image (on a G5 dual 2ghz) and about 2 mins to restore a volume. As far as data integrity, it been great. I also tested it using a 38gb volume and created and restored with no problems. The best part is you can use the demo in it's limited functionality as long as you want (says so on the website). I do plan on purchasing it, but I did want to say for basic functionality, SuperDuper! has met my basic needs. Get it here: SuperDuper! Reply to This # ]