In Anatomy of a no-image workflow, I laid out an example no-image workflow using a .pkg with other .pkg files as payloads that get run with a postinstall script, and that’s just because I forgot to turn off the rootVolumeOnly flag.
Well, if you actually remember to take that flag off, it’s fairly simple to create a no-image using Packages. Here’s how you do it….
When Packages launches up, it will ask if you want to a Distribution or a Raw Package. Select Distribution.
Name the project and select the location to save the project to.
For On Success, select Require Restart.
For options, select Relocatable (this is allows you to install the resulting .pkg to another drive).
Then, from Project, select Import Package.
Import the packages you need. For the Munki tools packages, make sure you get the individual components, which you can get using AutoPkg.
From Build, select Build, and then you’ll have your NoImage.pkg ready to go.
You can install it by booting an external drive and installing the .pkg to the internal disk, or you can boot the never-booted Mac in target disk mode and then install the .pkg from another Mac.