Capture and Deploy Question!
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We recently installed FOG on a dedicated device and have successfully used it to capture and deploy a simple image for a laptop. I have two (probably simple) questions.
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We can’t seem to be able to capture directly from the PXE menu. How do we enable this?
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When we deploy our image (Windows 10 install, fully updated and full of our software that we need), it seems to take a very long time at the “Getting Ready” screen. We let it run for over an hour or two and left it overnight. It was done when we came back in the next morning. Has anyone seen this and know how to lower this time? It has an SSD, so I don’t think it’s a disk bottleneck.
Edit: 3. We can’t seem to download the client within “Client Management”. When we click the link for the smart installer, it seems to time out.
Thank you!
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@thesavagetony First welcome to the FOG Project.
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You can’t capture directly from the PXE menu. You must register the host fist, then if this is a new capture create an image definition and connect it to the host definition. This must be done from the web gui. You can deploy directly from the FOG iPXE menu without registering the host or touching the web gui.
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This is a windows issue not FOG. Once OOBE starts, then FOG is out of the picture. Only MS knows what voodoo is going on behind the Getting Ready screen.
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What version of FOG are you using? I can say I use the MSI and it downloads correctly.
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Thanks! That’s what I was finding, but maybe I misunderstood the Wiki while following it.
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Understood. Thanks!
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We are running 1.4.4. It sits at connecting for probably 10 seconds and then gives a browser error that it’s timed out. Is the smart installer located somewhere in the FOG file directory that we can just pull it from?
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- (addendum) You can deploy from the iPXE menu if you don’t ever plan on fog managing the system post imaging. All history of fog imaging that machine after deployment will be gone. You might use this feature of you are an OEM remanufacturer where you will never see the system again after imaging.
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- Yes it exists on the fog server in this path
/var/www/html/fog/client
Please help us build the FOG community with everyone involved. It's not just about coding - way more we need people to test things, update documentation and most importantly work on uniting the community of people enjoying and working on FOG!
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Might be interesting to see if there’s anything in your apache (or php-fpm logs if you have them) logs. (can be found under FOG Configuration -> Log viewer)
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@george1421 said in Capture and Deploy Question!:
- Yes it exists on the fog server in this path
/var/www/html/fog/client
Thanks much!
- Yes it exists on the fog server in this path
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@george1421 said in Capture and Deploy Question!:
- (addendum) You can deploy from the iPXE menu if you don’t ever plan on fog managing the system post imaging. All history of fog imaging that machine after deployment will be gone. You might use this feature of you are an OEM remanufacturer where you will never see the system again after imaging.
How would I go about enabling this feature?
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@thesavagetony That feature is enabled by default. Once you have your captured images in FOG. When you pxe boot a computer, there should be a menu item “Deploy Image”. Just select that and pick your image name and FOG will deploy from there.
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@george1421 Sorry, there was some confusion. We were trying to capture from the pxe boot menu. We are able to deploy.
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@thesavagetony As I mentioned before you can not capture directly from the pxe boot menu.
If you want to capture an image from a computer you must do the following.
- PXE boot a computer and select full or quick register from the pxe boot menu. Or manually register a computer in the webgui.
- Create an image definition in the web gui. This will provide a container where to save the image upon capture.
- In the webgui, go to the host you just registered and associate the newly created image definition with the host. (If you have a previously saved image (already captured) then you make this association when you do a full registration)
- Update the host definition settings.
- In the host definitions select basic tasks
- On the basic tasks select capture
- Schedule the capture task
- PXE boot the target computer, it will then start capturing right away uploading the iPXE kernel.
That is the primary way to capture a new computer image. Deployment is another matter, but off topic for this question.
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@george1421 Great, I appreciate all of the info again!
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@thesavagetony said in Capture and Deploy Question!:
Thanks! That’s what I was finding, but maybe I misunderstood the Wiki while following it.
Can you give me a link to the article you are referring to please?
