NetBoot serve OS 9.2.2 image from Lion Server?

[Anonymous Freak]

Alright, I have a couple older Macs that I would like to have use NetBoot to boot in to Mac OS 9 (yes, they're capable of booting into Mac OS 9, and are capable of NetBoot.)

I have downloaded the NetBoot for Mac OS 9 package/image from Apple: http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1192

And I have NetBoot enabled on my Lion Server.

I have successfully booted an Intel Mac into a Snow Leopard image I have created, but I can't figure out how to make NetBoot serve up the OS 9 image properly. (And this is an image made specifically by Apple for NetBooting!)

Does anyone know how to get this up and running?

 

[aarond12]

What model of Mac are you trying to start with OS 9? Most modern Macs won't even run that old of an operating system. You'll be restricted to the oldest G4 systems or earlier only.

 

[Anonymous Freak]

What model of Mac are you trying to start with OS 9? Most modern Macs won't even run that old of an operating system. You'll be restricted to the oldest G4 systems or earlier only.

To re-quote myself...

...yes, they're capable of booting into Mac OS 9...

And "the oldest" G4 systems isn't the most accurate. It's all but the *NEWEST* Power Mac G4. In my case, it's an OS 9-bootable iMac, eMac, and Power Mac G4.

 

[aarond12]

Heh. That's what I get for speed-reading your post. Sorry.

Now the question is... WHY? Are you having difficulties finding hard drives for some of those older computers and you want to diskless netboot them? Are you going to use them for some other purpose? I mean, these computers are going to be pushing nearly a decade old...

 

[Anonymous Freak]

Heh. That's what I get for speed-reading your post. Sorry.

Now the question is... WHY? Are you having difficulties finding hard drives for some of those older computers and you want to diskless netboot them? Are you going to use them for some other purpose? I mean, these computers are going to be pushing nearly a decade old...

All of them are already over a decade old. About half "just because", and about half because I have their hard drive set up with a more modern/usable OS X, but would like to occasionally boot them into OS 9.

 

[philgxxd]

@Anonymous Freak
Did you ever got it working?
I'm having problems to boot that same 9.2.2 image from Apple's website from a 10.5 server i have installed fresh on my G5 quad.
It won't install directly but I tried it on a Tiger (non-server) client and looked at the installer log. I moved the files the installer left in the library folder manually over to the 10.5 server installation and I could setup the netboot service with the 9.2.2 image.
But any netbootable machine I tried wouldn't boot from it.
That is an iMac G3, iBook G3 and Powerbook G4 Titanium.
I didn't get any clue from the server log as why it wouldn't work.
The netboot service itself is working as I could boot from a 10.4 Tiger image from said machines.

 

[guzhogi]

@Anonymous Freak
Did you ever got it working?
I'm having problems to boot that same 9.2.2 image from Apple's website from a 10.5 server i have installed fresh on my G5 quad.
It won't install directly but I tried it on a Tiger (non-server) client and looked at the installer log. I moved the files the installer left in the library folder manually over to the 10.5 server installation and I could setup the netboot service with the 9.2.2 image.
But any netbootable machine I tried wouldn't boot from it.
That is an iMac G3, iBook G3 and Powerbook G4 Titanium.
I didn't get any clue from the server log as why it wouldn't work.
The netboot service itself is working as I could boot from a 10.4 Tiger image from said machines.

I miss some of the games from the "classic" Mac era. You ever play Harry the Handsome Executive?

 

[philgxxd]

No. On my iMac G3 I was playing only BugDome and a friend introduced me to the Myst saga.

 

[Anonymous Freak]

@Anonymous Freak
Did you ever got it working?
I'm having problems to boot that same 9.2.2 image from Apple's website from a 10.5 server i have installed fresh on my G5 quad.
It won't install directly but I tried it on a Tiger (non-server) client and looked at the installer log. I moved the files the installer left in the library folder manually over to the 10.5 server installation and I could setup the netboot service with the 9.2.2 image.
But any netbootable machine I tried wouldn't boot from it.
That is an iMac G3, iBook G3 and Powerbook G4 Titanium.
I didn't get any clue from the server log as why it wouldn't work.
The netboot service itself is working as I could boot from a 10.4 Tiger image from said machines.

I know I got it working *somehow*, I just don't remember how. It might have even been using an older version of MacOS/OS X as the NetBoot server. Sadly, IIRC, the server's hard drive kicked the bucket just a month or two after I never bothered getting it set back up.

 

[philgxxd]

I finally got it to work.
I followed the guide from here.

[Tut - incomplete] 10.5 Server as an OS9 NetBoot Server... - BetaArchive

The key to success was manually set the properties of that OS9 netboot image to PowerPC only.