@Envy said in Help Required: Debugging PXE Boot Error on Mixed-Environment Network:

Problem: Some of our UEFI computers fail to obtain an IP address during PXE boot attempts, while others appear to continue but finally clock out with a “No configuration methods succeeded” error.

First since you have a mix environment I would start with setting up your dhcp server to send both bios and uefi boot files: https://wiki.fogproject.org/wiki/index.php/BIOS_and_UEFI_Co-Existence#Using_Windows_Server_2012_.28R1_and_later.29_DHCP_Policy

Second the no configuration methods succeeded and not getting an IP address sounds a lot like you have the default spanning tree configured. Where you should be running one of the fast spanning tree protocols like port-fast fast-stp, rstp, mstp, or what ever your switch mfg calls it. A quick test is to put one of those cheap 5 port unmanaged network switches between the pxe booting computer and the enterprise switch. If that fixes the problem then talk to your network admins to enable one of the fast stp protocols on all network ports where you have clients that need to pxe boot. Understand this is an infrastructure issue and not specifically a fog issue.

Also make sure you have the latest version of FOG installed or at least recompile ipxe to the latest version: https://forums.fogproject.org/topic/15826/updating-compiling-the-latest-version-of-ipxe

But I think I would work on the first two issues I mentioned first. Your network troubles really sound like the second issue I mentioned.

@gothikserpent What are the issues you’re seeing in the Single Disk resizable method?

I ask because while, from a purely technical standpoint, a resizable image would indeed be able to be on a slightly smaller disk (assuming your linux partition is in an EXT format, not LFS) the capture itself doesn’t change, just the restructuring of the partitions.

@george1421 I can’t point you to the ISO, only to their website to purchase a copy (Parted Magic Store), but I’ve grabbed 3 different cfgs and attached them. From what I see it appears that the iPXE format used is fine. And maybe this is not an iPXE issue anyway.

kernel ${win_base_url}/pm/bzImage initrd ${win_base_url}/pm/initrd.img imgfetch ${win_base_url}/pm/fu.img imgfetch ${win_base_url}/pm/m.img imgfetch ${win_base_url}/pm/files.cgz imgargs bzImage initrd=initrd.img initrd=fu.img initrd=m.img initrd=files.cgz edd=on vga=normal boot

The above seems to line-up fine with what I see in other cfgs.

kernel ${win_base_url}/pmagic/bzImage initrd=initrd.img initrd=fu.img initrd=m.img edd=on vga=normal netsrc=wget neturl="${win_base_url}/pmagic/pmodules/" netargs="-U pmagicboot" initrd ${win_base_url}/pmagic/initrd.img initrd ${win_base_url}/pmagic/fu.img initrd ${win_base_url}/pmagic/m.img boot

The code above loads the init stuff, but does say “/proc/cmdline: line 1: bzImage: command not found” but it does start to download the SQFS. However, that download fails around 76% with another error. Downloaded it in a browser to make sure my webserver isn’t wonky, and it compares without issue to the original in the ISO. Also, the ISO boots fine…
grubcfg.txt
sample_pxelinuxcfg.txt
syslinuxcfg.txt

@george1421 thank you so much this is what I was searching for.

@jaapvdpol Well lets see if we can get a few things sorted out here.

Scale: I have not seen an install yet with 100 storage nodes. Each storage node will need to be managed at some point in time.

I kind of see this as a two phase project.

The initial push to move from windows to linux. Will you have boots on the ground at each location to do this? If yes they can bring a mobile deployment server with them (laptop kitted with what they need for imaging). If you are trying to do this all remote I can see it taking a while to complete. Post upgrade to linux. From time to time you may need to image failed computers. How will you handle that? Have a fog server at each site? Will you train local folks to be able to do this? Or is a drop ship a new system and they return the failed one for repair a bit of a better solution? Now I’ve used a raspberry pi for a fog server to image low volume systems. But that is before the prices of those critters when crazy. You think about it, with a site of 20 computers, you might, and I say ‘might’ reimage 1 computer a year. Is there value in having 100 storage nodes? I’m not saying one way or the other is right, just think about what you are trying to achieve and how much management work you are willing to do.

Now in regards to dnsmasq, that is a service we can install on the FOG server. With our configuration it will send out pxe boot information to the local subnet its connected to. You don’t need to touch anything on the router or network. So when the mobile fog server arrives, so does the pxe boot information. When the mobile fog server leaves, so does the concept of pxe booting. In this design (mobile deployment server) the target computers are not designed to pxe boot through the fog server, but instead a tech sitting in front of the computer presses F10 or F12 during booting to get to the efi boot manager where the tech picks pxe boot.

Understand I’m just trying to tell you what’s possible. Since I don’t know 100% of your use case I can only give suggestions based on how FOG works.

@george1421
Thanks, that’s very helpful. I’ll do some debugging and see what I can find.

@sega You can try something like this:
https://superuser.com/questions/29450/how-to-do-a-powershell-or-other-script-to-change-screen-resolution

Sure it’s a help site, but it should be there to help out.

@PhilienTaylor I’m not sure what your question is here. Your end goal is not clear based on what you have posted.

FOG doesn’t support imaging over Torrent. FOG doesn’t support Secure boot. There is a tutorial on how you can create your own keys and then sign the boot files. This will require you to upload the certificates into each hardware. Or to go to microsoft and go through the process to get microsoft signed signing keys for what you want to boot on the target hardware. FOG doesn’t have any utlity for hypervisor environments. The FOG server can run as a vm client, but FOG has no relationship with virtualization.

@george1421

Absolutely, I already had http serving in-place so the additional 1GB size result was negligible impact. Thanks for the additional insight, however.

Happy to help out, I just noticed a majority of posts about this ended with users reporting Hiren over PXE was “solved” by simply updating their wimboot version, with no other notes. While it does fix booting it, it is only part of the solution. It’s necessary to do that but it is not a complete fix. You need the Y:\ mount fixed or else the booted ISO is still heavily broken. Hopefully this helps some people out. HBCD is a great Swiss Army knife.

PS: I changed BOOT EXIT TYPE and EFI BOOT EXIT TYPE and the rEFInd menu appeared and the Windows was booted.

Just curious to know if that fixed the situation or renaming the files which I mentioned before.

@AisleWay The WOL Broadcast plugin is designed specifically for your use case.

Seeing as fog server is running on 10.133.x.x, the WOL packets are restricted (by default) to that particular subnet.

If you add the broadcast of 10.20.x.x to the plugin, it will send there.

If you need it to go to 10.10.x.x, add it to the plugin and wol will send via that as well.

Not sure what else we can provide.

This seems, to me, to indicate that the other networks are separated.

For example:

10.x.x.x is generally the whole scope, (10.0.0.0/8) but you have your network broken into seperated subnets.

For example:
10.0.0.0/16
10.1.0.0/16

etc…

If all systems in your network is in the 10.x.x.x scope, why the separation when you want not to have to worry about what network to send across?

@mashina said in Providing installation media via pxe booting for UEFI systems.:

Interestingly, the problem doesn’t occur when Ubuntu is already present, and then Windows is deployed. Anyway, that is not a big problem at this moment.

But in this case the uefi firmware has already registered ubuntu as a bootable OS. So it just goes, oh hello I see you again on disk1. But if the entry doesn’t exist then it needs to be fixed up. You might be able to test this on a working system, go into the uefi firmware and delete the entry for ubuntu on the second disk, only leaving windows in the uefi boot manager. Upon reboot does it need to fix itself up again?

Just be aware that FOG doesn’t touch the uefi firmware or boot manager. BUT you can do that with in a FOG post install script and using the linux uefi manager (not the actual name) app. You can add remove uefi boot manager entries at your need.

Your suggestion works well for putting Linux on Disk1, but if the user needs to reinstall Windows, it’ll also go to /dev/nvme1n1, messing everything up

True it will mess everything up. But also I took your inital post as you will load windows once and then could potentially reload ubuntu or the OS on the second drive multiple times. If you “had to” you could write a FOG preinstall script to ask what drive do you want to send the image too, but that gets a bit messy, but its possible.

@Orfeous said in FOG Project instead of CloneZilla Lite Server:

My goal here is to install Debian or Ubuntu on a PC to be run as a Server. I have a couple of NUCs that I want o deploy an image to via isolated network. Server and Client machines connected to the same switch. No router or such in play.

You can do this on an isolated network completely or install 2 nics in your FOG server and have one connected to your imaging network and one to your business network for remote management on the fog server.

You can also set this up on your business network without interfering with your business network communications. So it can work either way. In some instances you might need access to your business network for AD integration as your target computers boot during its first boot. I understand your goal is linux so AD is not required. But the point is either way FOG will work.

I want this Server to run a DHCP server and broadcast ips to the client machines that will be netbooting via PXE.

If you want to run on an isolated imaging network, just pick to include the FOG DHCP server and the installer script will install the dhcp server and configure it for you.

I want to use those NUCs to boot via PXE and then automatically disk will be restored from image.

If i get other PC vendors and models I want to use another image for those.

No problem on multiple vendors. You just need to really be mindful of the firmware on the target computer bios or uefi modes because the target image is handled a little bit differently between the two firmware classes. FWIW you can not deploy a bios computer captured image to a uefi based computer. The same holds true in reverse.

Is it possible to use my CloneZilla disk image that has already been saved?

While Clonezilla and FOG both use partclone to capture the disk image, the images are stored and compressed differently on either platform. So you can not share the images between the two environments. You will need to capture with FOG if you want to deploy with FOG, or capture with Clonezilla if you want to deploy with clonezilla.

Client NUCs uses NVme ssd and Windows 10 or 11 is located on the disk image.

Now you introduced Windows 10 into the picture. No problem, but that also might mean needing AD during firstboot. You have to remember that the FOS engine (the OS that boots on the target computer) is linux based. So nvme drives have a different disk label that sata drives. But you can capture from a sata drive and deploy to an nvme drive, but that is not a common situation.

Is this possible with FOG Project?

Yes it is

@george1421 Thank you for the information. I have managed to migrate/images, /snapin and the database to another new FOG server. Some steps needed to be done such as replacing the original IP with new IP. Because I intended not to use the original IP for the new FOG server as a backup plan. If anythings goes wrong with the new FOG server and I can revert to the original FOG server. 🙂

@FlareImp Issue fixed with

DELETE * FROM hostMAC where hmPrimary = '0';