Mac – Netboot Intel Macs without BSDP

Both DeployStudio and NetRestore have a NetBoot image that is created to launch the actual DeployStudio or NetRestore application to copy the image over. In the NetBoot section of Server Admin you want to disable the NetBoot image that has NetRestore installed on it (and once your migration is done you can remove it since it won't be needed) and make your DeployStudio NetBoot image the default.

If necessary you can recreate the DeployStudio NetBoot image by running the DeployStudio assistant again. You can also use netbootch.sh from Your Mac Guy which also continues to work even if NetBoot stops working until you can restart the server.

It's more likely to be a dynamic update DNS issue; Windows clients, beginning with Windows 2000, automatically update Windows DNS servers directly with their new details once they've been leased an IP address by the DHCP server. This way, the DNS and DHCP servers are kept in sync. Macs don't. Previous posters are correct when they say that the Macs are getting these incorrect hostnames from the DNS server. The problem, then, is with the DNS server.

I haven't used the current Microsoft DHCP server but previous versions provided an option specifically for this situation. Instead of the client machine talking directly to the Windows DNS server, as happens automatically with Windows 2000 client and later, the Windows DHCP server can update the Windows DNS server once it has successfully leased an IP address to a client.

You need to enable the option yourself in your Windows DHCP server. The wording for this option will usually be something like "Always Update DNS and Enable Updates To DNS Clients That Do Not Support Dynamic Update".

You might still find this article useful, though it's for Windows Server 2000 DHCP. (I'm not having a good Google day.)