Host Registration
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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]
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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?
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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)
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And I did not update the kernel (bzImage) on fog - is it a must on this stage?
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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.
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Great, will try and will update how it works, thanks a lot
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[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
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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.
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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.
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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!
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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.
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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?
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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?
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Hi Kevin: no I did not, I am even unable to register the machine, booting from pxe and able to see main fog menu, when doing quick or full registration just a black screen - that’s it.
You are saying that I need to create image template in fog web interface, and after this boot client from pxe to check how it works? I will test it but this is very strange way
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when you register the host, it needs to be tied to an image ID. If you haven’t set one up, it’ll throw some errors. So what you would do (for this sake, we’ll say it’s XP). You need to go into the web interface, setup an XP image, we’ll say it’s called ‘XP Domain’. When you register a client in FOG, it’ll get to a point where you can pick an image which should say something similar to ‘1- XP Domain’ and you would enter the number 1, and finish up. Then after you register it, you would go and upload the image to that template and officially load your image onto the server for that image ID.
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Have you tired manually entering the information into the FOG interface?
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[quote=“Kevin, post: 10415, member: 3”]when you register the host, it needs to be tied to an image ID. If you haven’t set one up, it’ll throw some errors. So what you would do (for this sake, we’ll say it’s XP). You need to go into the web interface, setup an XP image, we’ll say it’s called ‘XP Domain’. When you register a client in FOG, it’ll get to a point where you can pick an image which should say something similar to ‘1- XP Domain’ and you would enter the number 1, and finish up. Then after you register it, you would go and upload the image to that template and officially load your image onto the server for that image ID.[/quote]
I did this and yes I did it manually, created image template, register the host manually and tied it with image, create upload task and started client machine, it picked up fog meniu but did not upload the image to the server - just went to normal os boot.
So if I already registered host manually and tied it up with image (but host and image are not existing in real time yet) do I need to do a quick/full host registration on client machine?
Thanks for your help
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If I understand correctly, you used the web interface to define an image and a host. The host being tied to the image. What I did next is to create an upload task in Fog and when I reboot the host, it loads the Fog kernel and sends an image to Fog.
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Yes your understanding is correct. I did it just same way as you wrote here: created image template, register the host and tied with the image, when I’m registering a host it’s asking for host name: Do I need to put a real PC name? or I can leave like “PC” or “test” ?
Once I registered host manually and tied with the image I created upload task on this host. Started machine and was able to see fog menu and time just passed through and it booted to operating system.
I also tested another model: HP Compaq DC5750 - without manual registration. I tried to register it through the fog menu: quick and full registration. 100% the same thing: “atempting to send inventory…” THIS message disappeared and only black screen.
SO: I am unable to register the host through fog menu on quick and full registration and also unable to register the host manually by typing mac address in web interface.
Question: is firmware upgrade on this stage can be helpful? Any thoughts guys? Any other options how I can test what exactly is wrong? PXE and dhcp is working fine, when checking host compatibility everything is fine.
Thank you for your help.
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In Fog, we do match the Host name with the real PC name just to make it easy for ourselves, but I don’t think it is critical as Fog uses the MAC address to identify the computer. When the host boots, if the mac address does not match, it won’t be found and the task won’t execute.