New user - MBP and VM questions

[Tonsko]

Hi all,

After playing with the MBP for the weekend, I realised I need to think a little differently - for example, should I wish to reinstall everything, there is a solution I can use that just works, rather than having to reinstall everything and re-download all the updates etc.

That aside:

I intend to use my mac for my job sometimes. Part of my job involves going into data centres and customer's sites to test the security of their networks and web applications (some of which can be done remotely obviously).

Customers tend to like fresh installs on the test machines when you bring them into their networks - for (hopefully) obvious and understandable reasons.

OSX is a godsend in this respect, as a paranoid security professional, I imagine applying the practices I'm used with windows to OSX should result in it not being compromised (unless I'm targeted).

With regards to Windows VMs, is it possible to create one, and then just clone it and keep it its 'fresh' state, so after every test I can just delete the one I've used and then use a cloned one.

Also, is it possible to boot the MBP from an external firewire drive? For example, a 'clean' Windows install? I have replaced the MBP drive for an XT, so have the original 320 drive kicking about - may as well use it.

Cheers in advance.

 

[Detrius]

Both Parallels and VMWare support snapshots. So, you do your work, you do what you need to do, and then you revert to the snapshot.

So far as I'm aware, you can't boot Windows from a FireWire drive.


If you're the least bit familiar with the command line, look into asr (man asr). It's Apple's method of imaging hard drives, and it's been built into the OS for a long time.

 

[Tonsko]

So, you do your work, you do what you need to do, and then you revert to the snapshot.

I presume then, the first thing I do after I've created the VM is do a snapshot?

If you're the least bit familiar with the command line, look into asr (man asr). It's Apple's method of imaging hard drives, and it's been built into the OS for a long time.

Handy. Thanks

 

[Detrius]

I presume then, the first thing I do after I've created the VM is do a snapshot?

Yes, yes, and after every time you install a bunch of Windows updates, you create a new snapshot. You can even merge the snapshots you know you'll never need to revert to.

Additionally, there's even the option of templates which are created for this purpose as well. Either one will work. I would just think snapshots would be a little less annoying to work with.

 

[Tonsko]

Grand. Thanks