Will NetSUSLP install on multiple architectures?

jamf / NetSUS

NetBoot and Software Update Server

https://jamfnation.jamfsoftware.com/viewProduct.html?id=180

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Will NetSUSLP install on multiple architectures? #159

Open MacintoshRescue opened 3 years ago

MacintoshRescue commented 3 years ago

I presently host a Parallels virtual machine with NetSUSLP on a modern Mac but yesterday Apple started the move to Apple Silicon (ARM) processors. I would like to setup a new virtual machine with an ARM CPU on a new Mac in the future and am interested to know if the NetSUSLP installer is architecture specific? in other words will it install in an ARM virtual machine?

I guess also if this works with a Raspberry Pi that would answer my question.

Many thanks.

MacintoshRescue commented 3 years ago

I've had a go at this myself in qemu simulating a 64-bit arm system and encountered issues:

The Installer checks for AMD64 and and intel64 architectures, but this can be disabled when building a new installer file.
In CentOS 7 the netatalk and libdb4 packages don't seem to be available to yum, but one could install these from source before further modifying the NetSUSLP installer

It's a bit of work but it should be possible to run NetSUSLP on aarch64, but I'm personally giving up on this project and keeping an Intel Mac around for the foreseeable future.

Final thoughts: A Raspberry Pi image might be useful for users of NetSUSLP and I might be happy to put some time into that if there is interest here.

mattMali commented 3 years ago

Linux + Windows virtualization should be doable on appleSilicon hardware, according to Parallels (using the M1 preview build)

I'd usually prefer validating such a computing claim, via hands-on/personal experience, before promoting "Bleeding-Edge" to "Production-Ready" ... but alas, I am (currently) "Silicon-free" 🙈

MacintoshRescue commented 3 years ago

It's ARM64 versions of Windows and Linux that Parallels Desktop on Apple M1 can run. The NetSUS installer checks for intel or AMD64 architecture and installs support packages for those architectures only.

The NetSUS installer needs manual modifying to install the correct packages on an aarch64 system. CentOS 7 doesn't provide some of the necessary packages for aarch64, but other linux systems might. Compiling these packages from source could be an option to.

I've just setup a Big Sur VM which provides NetInstall images and at least I can transfer that to Apple Silicon. I'll likely use the Software Update service in NetSUSLP via QEMU on either a Pi, or Mac if the QEMU port becomes available.