The program and course of the diskless startup of the Apple imac All-in-one machine

All-in-one machine without disk startup scheme

Now a lot of enterprises and internet cafes will buy a batch of imac machine in the front desk or the entrance of the Internet café. But we all know that Apple's OS system is really unfamiliar to most users, and only a handful of users will actually be using it. So there is a batch of buy an imac machine to install Windows system users.

For enterprise users to buy several imac to install Windows system is actually very simple problem, but for Internet café users, because now more than 80% is a diskless internet cafes. So the imac has become a real problem from diskless startup.

A friend who has studied the imac probably knows that the imac machine is not like a normal PC in the BIOS set under the boot can be used without a disk, because the imac use EFI, so set up the network card to start the program directly by pass off.

Of course it's not that we don't have the means to do it, and through a period of research we find that we can solve this problem in a roundabout way.

Solutions to the following ideas
1. Install Syslinux (Grub) on the imac machine
2. Then install IPXE on Syslinux (GPXE)
3. Then use IPXE (GPXE) to start DHCP to obtain an IP address from a diskless server

With the above scheme began to study the specific implementation, in the study syslinux found that the latest version of the version of the SYSLINUX6 series can not guide the IPXE, various attempts to find the SYSLINUX4 series with the version of the normal boot ipxe.

When the Syslinux boot ipxe success, you need to use IPXE to obtain the IP address, but then again, when I tested the old imac with an IP address that was normal to boot, but a new version of the imac, I found that it was completely out of the question, The network device could not be found.

Later found that 2011 years after the production of the imac card is Marvell, 2011 years after the production of the imac Machine network card is Broadcom, and ipxe inside does not have the Broadcom network card driver, So all of the imac machines produced 2011 years later cannot obtain IP addresses.

All that remains to be solved is to find a way to Broadcom Nic Drive to Ipxe inside.

When the above Broadcom network card driver solution, the imac machine from diskless start problem solved. It then operates normally with a normal client.

The imac all-in-one boot tutorial

Previous instructions on how to get the imac machine to start from diskless, this time will direct you through the imac's diskless boot.

First install the Syslinux on the imac machine and start the IPXE with the syslinux. Finally, the IPXE is used to connect the diskless server to assign the IP address.

Preparatory work
1. To prepare a 2g+ size of u disk
2. Download Macpxeinstallusb (20140103); download at the end of the article
3. Download u disk making tools Win32diskimager; download at the end of the article
4. The most important please prepare the imac machine

First make the launch disk
1. Extract MACPXEINSTALLUSB files
2. Use Win32diskimager bar img to write to u disk
After the operation is completed, we will launch the USB drive to complete the bird.

Write to Syslinux and IPXE

1. Insert the front-made boot U disk into the imac.
2. Power down the Option/alt key
3. Select USB Disk boot (OS X Base System)
4. Select Menu Utility-> Terminal after entering OS X Base system
5. Enter the command in the terminal:/macpxe.sh
6. Wait for execution to complete, then enter the restart reboot imac
7. Once the above operation is complete, our imac can start the bird from diskless.

Disabling the imac disk device

Since Syslinux and Ipxe are written to the imac's hard drive, we need to open HyperTerminal and remove the imac's disk partition from the system so that the user accidentally modifies the file, causing the imac to fail to start. Of course, I will provide a tool to protect the imac with a read-only mode.

1. The imac starts from HyperTerminal.
2. Extract iMacProtect Files
3. Choose AMD64 or i386 based on your operating system version
4. Then run the iMacProtect.inf select installation directly
5. Restart the imac and confirm that the imac's letter is read-only.
6. Save HyperTerminal, end of the pack.