Host Registration

AFXV7

HELLO Guys,

host registration is a must or optional?
Is it enough to connect pc to fog subnet, save image to fog server and use this image for cloning - or I will be unable to do this until I will not register host?

THANKS!

BryceZ

Although it’s not officially supported, there is the [URL=‘http://www.fogproject.org/wiki/index.php/Bypass_Host_Registration’]bypass host registration[/URL] method. Otherwise, yes, you will need to register each host before imaging.

AFXV7

Thank you BryceZ,

So very first step: is to register the host (WHICH IS REFERENCE PC)
second step: upload the image
last step: use this image to clone another machines

Is this correct?

Thank you

Kevin

WITHOUT THE BYPASS:

Do a quick host registration (registers the MAC address as the PC name in FOG, and sets Image ID and OS ID)
1a. Do a full host registration (allows you to enter all information manually)
note Step 1 needs to be done on every machine
Log into FOG web server, select the machine in the host tab, select basic task, upload image
to image - log into the web server, select the machine in the host tab, select basic task, deploy image. Reboot the selected machine, PXE boot, and it’ll image
3a. Once a machine is registered, you can do a quick image, put in a username/password, and it’ll start to image that way.

WITH THE BYPASS:

you must do step 2 from above at least with 1 machine with the image you want to install on the other machines.
PXE boot your machine and select the image from the PXE menu. You don’t have to register the machine prior to imaging, it’ll push whatever image you selected to that machine.

AFXV7

Thanks Kevin, great help.

’ note Step 1 needs to be done on every machine ’ - on every machine which I want to clone? For example if I will use ‘without the bypass’ method I need to register all client machines? or this is only for hosts?

Thank you

Kevin

if you go with the ‘without the bypass’ method, every machine you want to image will first need to be in the FOG database. If you run SCCM, or other similar software, you can export a list of every machine on your network and import it into FOG. But in order to push an image to a machine without the bypass, it first needs to be registered in FOG.

‘with the bypass’ you really only need your machines with the image registered in FOG. At least I do it this way so I don’t accidentally upload an image instead of pushing one down. It has some other advantages as well, but won’t go into great detail. However, as an example, I have only 3 machines registered in our FOG server for images to upload. 2 laptop models and a desktop. With those 3 machines, and running the bypass, I can push an image to any of our 9,000 machines from the PXE menu.

AFXV7

‘with the bypass’ method seems to be better but requires more configuration, anyway will try both in the future.

Thanks a mill!

AFXV7

Hi,

I boot from pxe and am able to see fog menu.

Tried quick and full host registration, because want to create image of pc.

[FONT=sans-serif][COLOR=#000000]On documentation: “the client will go through a quick hardware inventory and restart” but I see only black screen and can’t see anything.[/COLOR][/FONT]

[FONT=sans-serif][COLOR=#000000][SIZE=12px]Checked Host section in fog through web management, nothing appeared here… any thoughts guys?[/SIZE][/COLOR][/FONT]

[FONT=sans-serif][COLOR=#000000][SIZE=12px]Thanks![/SIZE][/COLOR][/FONT]

Kevin

what model computer are you using? FOG won’t always reboot the computers at the end of tasks. I’ve found that Dell Optiplex 780’s have a real hard time restarting after imaging. Have you tried updating the kernel (bzImage) yet on fog?

AFXV7

Thanks for quick reply Kevin!

I’m not doing imaging now, this is very first time when I want to register this machine and build first image.

Model: Dell Optiplex 520 - is it compatible? because I run compatible test through fog menu did not get any errors.

I did restart manually after approx 15minutes on quick registration, checked host registration - no hosts.

Full registration - still in process ( think so, I see only black screen)

AFXV7

And I did not update the kernel (bzImage) on fog - is it a must on this stage?

Kevin

I would try loading this file into your server, this is the most up to date kernel for FOG, [url]http://sourceforge.net/projects/freeghost/files/Kernels/Kernel-linux-3.6.9.core/Kernel-linux-3.6.9.core/download[/url]

rename your current bzImage to bzImage.old (you might have to chmod it) and then rename the Kernel-linux-3.6.9 to bzImage and you should be good to go, at least to test to see if a newer version will solve your problem.

AFXV7

Great, will try and will update how it works, thanks a lot

AFXV7

[quote=“Kevin, post: 10366, member: 3”]I would try loading this file into your server, this is the most up to date kernel for FOG, [url]http://sourceforge.net/projects/freeghost/files/Kernels/Kernel-linux-3.6.9.core/Kernel-linux-3.6.9.core/download[/url]

rename your current bzImage to bzImage.old (you might have to chmod it) and then rename the Kernel-linux-3.6.9 to bzImage and you should be good to go, at least to test to see if a newer version will solve your problem.[/quote]

Did this and I see that it affected video drivers because view changed to normal condition and now I am able to see more text in the screen.

But still can’t register the host with quick registration, seems to be same issue after few minutes text just going up and disapearing in the top of the screen and only white cursor is blinking in the left corner. No messages from fog - maybe it requires more time?

Also checked full registration - does not work as well
“Unable to register host for the following reasons:”

and text went through very quickly, caught some erros:

error code “0x304”

And after this I see only fog logo in the left top corner.

Any thoughts on this?

Thanks

Kevin

1 thing that pops in my mind is in the BIOS, how your hard drive SATA settings are set. I"m going off of something I tried a long while ago, and may not be relevant anymore, but I don’t think FOG likes RAID. I know our Dells tend to come with RAID mode enabled, which we turn off. I would look at that and see how that’s set.

If that all checks out, make sure you’ve already created an image “template” in FOG. If you login to the web portal, go to Image Management (Fifth tab) > New Image. Give it a name, select a storage group (probably default) and select an image type.

This will need to be done prior to doing a host registration (at least a full host) since it asks what image you want to associate to that machine.

If it still fails, you can enter the information manually by going to Host Management (third tab on the web portal) > Add New Host. Here you can enter all the information that would be asked from the Full Host Registration through the PXE menu. Note that the MAC address has to be entered as xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx.

Then you can try to upload an image by going to List All Hosts > Click on the machine you registered or entered manually > Basic tasks > Upload. The next time you pxeboot, it should automatically upload your image.

AFXV7

I remember now that got also some errors related to “unsupported bios version” or something similar to this, text came through very fast - pause function did not work for me. I’ll check sata settings in bios, I hope raid settings will solve this. If no - will test manual registration method.

Thank you so much for all the information.
[SIZE=13px][FONT=arial][COLOR=#888888][COLOR=#000000]
[/COLOR][/COLOR][/FONT][/SIZE]

Kevin

Honestly, every machine that I boot gets the unsupported BIOS version, though i’ve never had it actually cause a problem. Hope you can get it working, post back your results!

AFXV7

Checked bios settings and did not anything on sata settings related to raid or something similar.

Tried to register the host manually, and run basic tasks -> upload the image - uploading did not start.

Sad but still can’t figure out what the problem is.

AFXV7

I also noticed that this particular dell model has some dell utility partition which is 39MB in FAT file system, can it be that this does not let me to register the host?

Kevin

that could very well be the problem. Our computers are built with our own image, so when we image the machines, it wipes out the Dell utility partition. Just to test, have you tried the multi-partition option for the image?

Host Registration

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