@alesser said in PXE-Booting a Modern Ubuntu live CD via UEFI mode:

I simply want to boot a linux live CD in EFI mode when the option is selected, run a script, and then stop.

Reading between the lines here, I wonder if another approach would be better/faster/greener?

Let me tell you a bit how fog images computers. The iPXE menu in conjunction with the boot.php program send 2 files to the target computer with some kernel parameters that tell the target computer what to do. Those two files are bzImage (the kernel) and init.xz (virtual hard drive a.k.a initrd). Those two files make up the os known as FOS (Fog Operating System). FOG uses buildroot to construct the initrd as well as compiles bzImage.

So one might wonder, do you need a full commercial OS run your script or just a linux OS? Do you need a persistent disk storage or once the script runs can the virtual machine just disappear?

So the grey beard hacker in me wonders if you could take FOS Linux delivered by the FOG server to do your bidding? Unless you are doing something crazy (like vlans, wireless, packet filtering) FOG’s bzImage should do what you need. It supports both uefi and bios modes, as well as init.xz. FOG supplies both a 64 bit and 32 bit version of FOS Linux.

So how do you hack init.xz to not image your target computer? Simply unpack the inits https://wiki.fogproject.org/wiki/index.php/Modifying_the_Init_Image Once you unpack the inits then look in the /etc/init.d directory for S99fog and delete it. Repack the inits and then pxe boot the computer again. Now you have a command line linux OS to play with that boots in under 15 seconds and disappears when powered off. The entire OS fits into 512MB of RAM, so its very VM friendly. If you need persistence memory just map an NFS share and grab your persistent data from there.

You might want to look into the /etc/init.d/S99fog file a bit deeper since you want to run a script the S99fog to do your task. https://github.com/FOGProject/fos/blob/master/Buildroot/board/FOG/FOS/rootfs_overlay/etc/init.d/S99fog

Now what do you do if FOS Linux doesn’t contain the linux programs you need. Welp, then you need to turn to build root and build your own init.xz (initrd) file. No worries since the FOG Project also provides the buildroot config file and fs overlay you need in the github site. https://github.com/FOGProject/fos/tree/master/Buildroot

@UWPVIOLATOR If you can’t get the application to behave with respect to the restarts, you could always create a snapin pack bundling the executable with a script. In the script, you could check to see if the application was already installed and of the correct version, then if it wasn’t perform the install. if you wanted to kick off the application and then do something like loop while the executable was running, you might want to play with the start command, something like start "" installer.exe -args. https://ss64.com/nt/start.html

@george1421 the /k flag runs the specified command then leaves the command window open. https://ss64.com/nt/cmd.html

@explosivo98 Strange that kernel should boot because the only thing added was some apple hardware IDs and an apple disk patch. Nothing for non-apples should be impacted.

Solved. OMG it’s so good to have another set of eyes on. Talk about not seeing the tree for the forest! I am watching first clone progress. This is far further than I was ever able to get with Symantec ghost - never could build their PXE client. Thank you so much Sebastian.

@Sebastian-Roth
I have no idea what I was doing wrong here… My calls now work.

@nonamejason How did you change it? Probably a config file, post that config file here. Or if it was through the GUI, post a picture of that.

I think i may have found the solution

https://forums.fogproject.org/topic/13891/cant-create-user-setting-up-fogproject-user-failed

@Sebastian-Roth Yes. I marked @Quazz as the correct answer.

@Sebastian-Roth

I’ll have to brush up on the commands for replacing the certs on the clients. Been a long time.

Thanks for your response @Daniel-Miller! It looks like I overlooked this plugin; it seems to be generally what I am looking for. There definitely seems to be issues related to provisioning with plugins (as has already been mentioned in the link you shared). Currently I can either have the printers auto-add using the persistent group and have snapins not run (which essentially breaks the provisioning process) or I can have Snapins run but not use the persistent group.

I have run at least a test or two where I think I got both to work but it may have been a fluke as I can’t really replicate that. I will keep plugging along.

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction!

@Dv27842 said in Unable to change IP for FOG Server installation on Ubuntu Server 18.04:

I have tried to change the IP address to a static IP address that is currently on my sandbox, but it will not keep the changes

Please give us more details. Where exactly did you try to change the IP? Within Ubuntu? Which file did you edit? What did it look like before?

I can imagine you were editing the wrong file. Ubuntu 16.04 network config is different than Ubuntu 18.04, see here: https://www.ostechnix.com/how-to-configure-ip-address-in-ubuntu-18-04-lts/

@tiengdung90 Can’t help you without further information.

@Greg-Plamondon Is this still an issue or did you find what was causing this?

@sgoodman Bump…

@sgoodman @Daniel-Miller @Greg-Plamondon @george1421 Has anyone run into this issue (again)? I’d think this might have been caused by a major .NET framework update which we can’t do much about.

In case people have PCs running for a long time without restart they might consider setting the service to auto-restart.

I am marking this solved now. Feel free to post if you think it’s not.

Cross reference to another topic: https://forums.fogproject.org/topic/13704/fog-service-quits-running

@Matthieu-Jacquart Sure right. If one client was pinned to the re-newed server CA cert then it can’t connect to the old original one. I missed that point! Good you figured it out!!!

Great we got that worked out.

@Sebastian-Roth OK. No problem.

@Daniel-Miller I looked into the speeds, auto-negotiating was set however the speed was messed up. It seems the port on the switch went bad. Plugged into another port and got the correct speed. Imaging seems to be back to normal now.

@Sebastian-Roth Thanks again. I created an new image without that VPN software installed and everything is working as it should. Sorry about this and thanks again for all your help and time.

@george1421 Hey George, sorry for the late reply, work has been closed for Christmas, first day back now.

That has worked, followed those instructions and reran the fog setup and now i can upload images without any issues.

Many thanks,
Pete