Is there a solution to deploy an image to a client directly after taking the IP address ?

[ammarjibarah]

Hi all, I will be deploying a certain image to a group of devices( 20 devices or more).
Is there a way where I can let the server deploy a certain image to the device without any human interaction, The normal process is that the user will wait for the client to take an IP address the choose the option “Deploy Image”, enter the username and password then choose the right image for the device. So is there a way to make this process faster at least to make all these devices.

Summery:

Process required: Just plug the client, boot to network mode, start deploying the image directly

Thanks for you support

[george1421]

If you have the client computer configured to network boot first the answer is yes if the clients are already registered. You can schedule a image deployment at any time, the next time the computer is rebooted it will image immediately without an human interaction. If the computer is powered off when the imaging task is requested (and you have wake on lan setup) the computer will power on and image.

There is a second option that requires a little human action. You can update the iPXE menu to auto supply the user id and password for imaging. So the user just needs to pick deploy image and then the image name. I’m pretty sure there was a feature request to limit what the user can see in the deploy image function too. When its turned on the user can only see the image that the fog admin defined for the computer.

[ammarjibarah]

Thanks for your reply,

The clients are not registered and I found the option where I can manually enter the username and password in the iPXE, cant I edit these to make it choose automatically or configure the whole boot menu to highlight by default certain entries with timeout so after it boots it selects the default entries automatically?

[Wayne Workman]

@ammarjibarah You can change all the default behaviors in the web gui. Web GUI -> FOG Configuration -> iPXE Menu Item Settings

[george1421]

@ammarjibarah So might we think you are a system rebuider? That’s OK we just need to understand how you will use fog.

In the menu configuration that Wayne provided. You can supply the user id and password for auto selection. In that same menu you can also hide menu items you don’t want, leaving only the Deploy Image option. Now this part I’m not 100% sure about, but I think you can make the default menu item for the iPXE menu to be “Deploy image”. Your imaging technician will need to still pick which image to deploy, but that will be the only human interaction.

[ammarjibarah]

Thank you guys, I will try these steps, I’ll keep you updated if anything happens

Thanks