Upgrading an xserve from Tiger to Leopard

[Fred Reitberger]

The install DVD is a dual layer so you need around  7 gig of space. 
The 4 gig will not cut it.

I forgot to add that if you call Applecare and ask for install CDs 
they will send them to you.  There might be a small charge at worst.

By using Disk Utility you get away from all of the command line 
things and target disk modes.  I have an 80 gig firewire drive that 
has four partitions.  One is the server installer, two is the client 
installer, three is a client installed and four is server installed. 
By selecting which partition to boot from I can install or test 
nearly any configuration.

Hope this makes sense and helps!

Fred



At 10:18 PM +0800 5/30/08, John Summerfield wrote:
>Fred Reitberger wrote:
>G'day, Fred.
>>John,
>>
>>If you have an external disk and a system with a DVD drive then you 
>>can create a partition on the external drive large enough to hold 
>>the installer image.  Then use disk utility to restore the install 
>>disk to the hard disk partition.  You then will have an install 
>>drive you can use.  One word of caution, when using restore in disk 
>>utility drag the root partition of the DVD to the source window. 
>>If you drag the installer partition the drive will not be bootable.
>>
>>I do this all of the time and in fact have used a 10gig USB stick 
>>this way as well.  It makes for a very fast install!
>
>I like the sound of the stick[1]; I don't have the install DVD to 
>hand (It's at work, I'm home); is my 4 Gbyte sandisk cruser big 
>enough?
>
>My Mac lappy's only got USB1, does anyone know whether the USB copy 
>can be made from Linux?
>
>Copying to a real ATA disk is possible too[2], I imagine I can do 
>that to the xserve in target mode; can I choose which disk to boot 
>from?
>
>
>[1] but I don't think I can boot it, this is G4. It might not be 
>quick either, but if it doesn't keep stopping to ask stupid 
>questions I don't care.
>[2] From Linux to a disk in a USB2 enclosure, or from the xserve by 
>mounting the DVD over NFS, or even target mode (I presume) by 
>removing all other disks.
>
>>
>>Fred
>>
>>
>>
>>At 4:13 PM +0800 5/30/08, John Summerfield wrote:
>>>Andrew Oliver wrote:
>>>>
>>>>On May 28, 2008, at 3:44 PM, John Summerfield wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>I was hoping this would be possible. Is the result of this asr 
>>>>>command a bootable disk? To clone a disk on Linux, I'd want it 
>>>>>unmounted and therefore that form would not be possible.
>>>>
>>>>As per 'man asr':
>>>>
>>>>>HISTORY
>>>>>      Apple Software Restore got its start as a field service 
>>>>>restoration tool
>>>>>      used to reconfigure computers' software to 'factory' state.  It later
>>>>>      became a more general software restore mechanism and 
>>>>>software installa-
>>>>>      tion helper application for various Apple computer products.  ASR has
>>>>>      been used in manufacturing processes and in shipping 
>>>>>computers' System
>>>>>      Software Installers.
>>>>
>>>>Since it's used at that level, it's clear that asr-based clones 
>>>>are, indeed, bootable, especially with the help of bless.
>>>>
>>>>Now, if you're cloning a live system with changing data, you're 
>>>>taking your chances - it may or may not boot depending on which 
>>>>files change during the clone. That said, to date I've yet to 
>>>>have a problem with it.
>>>
>>>What fun!
>>>
>>>The xserve doesn't like the install DVD. TheBoss thought it pretty 
>>>funny when  I explained it to him. The xserve has a CD drive.
>>>
>>>It happens I have a laCie firewire CD burner or two around, I'll 
>>>see next week ehether I can put a DVD-ROM drive in, we have a 
>>>stack of those too.
>>>
>>>The other alternative is target mode. I have two official Apple 
>>>documents here, and they differ as to which should be in target 
>>>mode. Never mind, target mode only exposes one drive; on the 
>>>xserve I need two for the preliminary backup. On the laptop 
>>>(administration computer) it would need to export the DVD drive, 
>>>and I don't think that will happen.
>>>
>>>
>>>To clone the system, I booted to single-user mode. asr is being difficult.
>>>
>>>Since I've booted to single-user mode, no volumes (is this the 
>>>right word? In Linux I'd say "partitions" or "filesystems") are 
>>>mounted. Therefore pretty much all the examples of ars usage are 
>>>irrelevant.
>>>
>>>
>>>I have tried these
>>>   asr -source  /dev/rdisk0 -target /dev/rdisk3 -erase
>>>   asr -source /dev/disk0 -target /dev/disk3 -erase
>>>and both forms complain
>>>"Couldn't initialize disk arbitration - Cannot allocate memory" 
>>>and some other messages.
>>>
>>>Google doesn't know. I don't know. I'm going home.
>>>
>>>I will be back
>>>
>>>
>>>ps now it's booted to multi-user mode, I have a working asr command:
>>>asr -source / -target /dev/disk3s3 -erase
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>--
>>>John
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>
>>
>
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-- 
---------------------
Fred Reitberger
352-754-8806
fred at reitberger.org
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