Compatibility check for X1 Carbon 2018

[AsGF2MX]

I’ve just got a couple of X1 Carbons (i7-vPro) 2018 and right after the ram disk downloads, the machine freezes up and sits there before it auto reboots.

I’ve tried using the USB Type-C dock and the USB adapters which were wrongly shipped. Still waiting on the native connector for the I219.

I am unfortunately still running 1.3 so I have to ask if anyone has got this working and if so are there any special settings and which adapter are you using?

[george1421]

Is there any chance to spin up a FOG 1.5.5 environment to see if the issue has already been resolved. 1.3.0 is somewhat old with old kernels and inits. Updating the kernel is not sufficient since you need the later inits too which are linked to the updated FOG server code.

X1 Carbons (i7-vPro) 2018 and right after the ram disk downloads
Can you explain this? is the ram disk you are talking about is the FOS init.xz file? Ensure that the firmware is up to date on the carbon devices. We’ve seen some pretty buggy firmware on early release systems that are addressed with firmware (BIOS) updates.

[AsGF2MX]

@george1421 said in Compatibility check for X1 Carbon 2018:

Is there any chance to spin up a FOG 1.5.5 environment to see if the issue has already been resolved. 1.3.0 is somewhat old with old kernels and inits. Updating the kernel is not sufficient since you need the later inits too which are linked to the updated FOG server code.

X1 Carbons (i7-vPro) 2018 and right after the ram disk downloads
Can you explain this? is the ram disk you are talking about is the FOS init.xz file? Ensure that the firmware is up to date on the carbon devices. We’ve seen some pretty buggy firmware on early release systems that are addressed with firmware (BIOS) updates.

It is the init.xz and the firmware is the latest - just built 1 week ago. I will have to re-check to see if there are any other updates. Is it just the kernel and init.xz that need to be swapped out? I did try to replace the pxe files with the latest one but it made no difference.

1.5.5 is on the cards but originally not till the X1s are out in the field. Having said that I had a fleet of T480 units that got imaged with no issue.

[george1421]

@AsGF2MX Well where we have seen this issue before is in then hand off between iPXE mode and the uefi firmware to launch the kernel. You could try newer iPXE kernels that may have a workaround for buggy firmware. Typically a firmware update fixes the issue. But if you have the latest firmware we need to look elsewhere.

As an alternative, you could switch the device back to bios (legacy) mode for capture and deploying. I know its a bit of a pain, but that method works too. You can capture and deploy a uefi image in bios mode no problem. You just have to be in the right firmware mode to boot the OS.

While this isn’t a solution (and not sure if it worked in 1.3) we have been able to usb boot right into FOS bypassing PXE loading altogether. There are some caveats with this approach but it does work (for sure) with the 1.4.x branch. https://forums.fogproject.org/topic/7727/building-usb-booting-fos-image Look at the FOG forum chat for an example image file. You will want to install the kernels and inits from 1.3.x series on the usb flash drive as well as update grub.cfg according to the tutorial to see if it works for you.

One last thing I thought of, make sure secure boot is disabled. The FOS kernels are not signed by microsoft so secure booting is not viable right now.

[Sebastian Roth]

@AsGF2MX said in Compatibility check for X1 Carbon 2018:

Is it just the kernel and init.xz that need to be swapped out?

You can try using the latest binaries but no promise this will work. Download and extract the archive. Then put bzImage* and init* into /var/www/html/fog/service/ipxe - probably best to rename the original ones and not overwrite.

We have seen numerous devices that simply hang after loading init.xz and quite often it turned out to be for different reasons. Some of them George has already mentioned. Also we had devices with buggy firmware that needed a specifically patched kernel binary to work around firmware issues.

If you are keen to get this working I am sure we can work on this. All depends on how much time you have. When do you need to deploy those (tomorrow, in a week, two weeks, after Christmas?) and how much time to you have to test debug kernels I would provide?

[AsGF2MX]

@Sebastian-Roth I’m going to give the binaries a shot first.

I’m in tough spot timing wise - let me give the binary method a go first and see if it works. If yes, I’ll fastrack the planned rebuild of the FOG box. If not, 2 units have to go out by Friday while I can withhold the rest a bit longer. Definitely keen on getting it working.

@george1421 I should have mentioned in the original post it seems the 8th gen chips don’t play nice with legacy mode as it doesn’t even get as far as PXE booting - crashes out. Not sure exactly why as I have the I219 in 7th gen machines with no issue.

Secure boot is the first thing I disable as pretty much my entire fleet is UEFI - a mix of 4th to 7th gen i5 chips and now 8th gen chips as well.

I will keep the USB method as a plan C

EDIT:
Well I’m now at the USB method and @george1421 thanks for the img. I got the usb to work. However I can’t remember the cli for the fog command. and the wiki page has the deploy section empty.

[Sebastian Roth]

@AsGF2MX said in Compatibility check for X1 Carbon 2018:

However I can’t remember the cli for the fog command. and the wiki page has the deploy section empty.

Not sure if I get that right. In a debug shell you simply run command fog to run whichever task is scheduled for this client.

[Tom Elliott]

Our API on the init side is pretty simple. fog is the command that does all the actions for you. There’s no switches/arguments involved. Maybe in a future version we’ll have stuff like:

fog -D || fog --deploy
fog -C || fog --capture

fog -D -d || fog --deploy --debug
fog -C -d || fog --capture --debug

It’s not there yet and we rely pretty heavily on the web calls to generate the appropriate action.

[george1421]

@AsGF2MX said in Compatibility check for X1 Carbon 2018:

Well I’m now at the USB method and @george1421 thanks for the img. I got the usb to work. However I can’t remember the cli for the fog command. and the wiki page has the deploy section empty.

Not sure why you need the debug command. You should schedule the task in the FOG server then usb boot the flash drive. Pick option 1 and it should boot into fos doing what ever the FOG server told it to do (capture/deploy).

[AsGF2MX]

@george1421 said in Compatibility check for X1 Carbon 2018:

@AsGF2MX said in Compatibility check for X1 Carbon 2018:

Well I’m now at the USB method and @george1421 thanks for the img. I got the usb to work. However I can’t remember the cli for the fog command. and the wiki page has the deploy section empty.

Not sure why you need the debug command. You should schedule the task in the FOG server then usb boot the flash drive. Pick option 1 and it should boot into fos doing what ever the FOG server told it to do (capture/deploy).

I’m not using the default IP range on the fog server but the key seems to be using 192.x.x.x. I’m not sure how to get it to start imaging.

@AsGF2MX said in Compatibility check for X1 Carbon 2018:

@george1421 said in Compatibility check for X1 Carbon 2018:

Is there any chance to spin up a FOG 1.5.5 environment to see if the issue has already been resolved. 1.3.0 is somewhat old with old kernels and inits. Updating the kernel is not sufficient since you need the later inits too which are linked to the updated FOG server code.

X1 Carbons (i7-vPro) 2018 and right after the ram disk downloads
Can you explain this? is the ram disk you are talking about is the FOS init.xz file? Ensure that the firmware is up to date on the carbon devices. We’ve seen some pretty buggy firmware on early release systems that are addressed with firmware (BIOS) updates.

It is the init.xz and the firmware is the latest - just built 1 week ago. I will have to re-check to see if there are any other updates. Is it just the kernel and init.xz that need to be swapped out? I did try to replace the pxe files with the latest one but it made no difference.

1.5.5 is on the cards but originally not till the X1s are out in the field. Having said that I had a fleet of T480 units that got imaged with no issue.

Unfortunately, I just stood up a 1.5.5 instance and even with no image and triggering a quick host register causes it to hang up. So I’m trying to see how to proceed.

[Sebastian Roth]

@AsGF2MX said in Compatibility check for X1 Carbon 2018:

I’m not using the default IP range on the fog server but the key seems to be using 192.x.x.x. I’m not sure how to get it to start imaging.

When creating the USB key there is a variable you need to change… here is an excerpt of the script:

...
echo Create the grub configuration file
cat > /mnt/boot/grub/grub.cfg << 'EOF'

set myfogip=192.168.1.100
set myimage=/boot/bzImage
set myinits=/boot/init.xz
....

No need to recreate the USB key. Simply mount it and edit boot/grub/grub.cfg on that key. Put in your FOG server’s IP and you should be fine. Manually register the host’s MAC, then simply schedule a task for it and boot right into the task via USB.

[AsGF2MX]

@Sebastian-Roth said in Compatibility check for X1 Carbon 2018:

@AsGF2MX said in Compatibility check for X1 Carbon 2018:

I’m not using the default IP range on the fog server but the key seems to be using 192.x.x.x. I’m not sure how to get it to start imaging.

When creating the USB key there is a variable you need to change… here is an excerpt of the script:

...
echo Create the grub configuration file
cat > /mnt/boot/grub/grub.cfg << 'EOF'

set myfogip=192.168.1.100
set myimage=/boot/bzImage
set myinits=/boot/init.xz
....

No need to recreate the USB key. Simply mount it and edit boot/grub/grub.cfg on that key. Put in your FOG server’s IP and you should be fine. Manually register the host’s MAC, then simply schedule a task for it and boot right into the task via USB.

I do have to apologize for the delayed response as a lot happened:

• Modified the USB, it did boot but would not image as it couldn’t detect the disk (odd)
• I set up a new FOG server and had it try to capture the disk and it didn’t yield either (same PXE fail)
• Been hunting for a native Ethernet dongle but with vendors disappearing left and right for X’mas I didn’t have much luck

Having said that, I managed to snag a T480 dock from one of our users who is off till the end of the week and the T480 dock fits the X1 Carbon perfectly and will even allow the native Ethernet pass through - this seems to be specific to the 8th gen machines as my own T470 doesn’t want fit this dock.

As I had expected, it works without any issue! My Fog 1.3.x works and the 1.5 is to be tested later.

In case it helps what didn’t work due to the X1/USB dongle issue:

• USB 3.0 Ethernet Adapter Model: RTL8153
• USB-C Dock - Model DK1633
  Both would seize up BIOS/UEFI mode right after the iPXE load.

What did work:

• Thinkpad Pro Docking Station SD20R56775

I just imaged the first X1. Though I didn’t get the fleet out for X’mas at least I should be able to get these out in time for the users to start with a fresh machine next year!

Hopefully this insight helps.

[fry_p]

I wanted to stop by and say that I can concur that I was able to image the 2018 newest x1 carbon using the Lenovo Dock as well. I did not try any other means as we purchased the docks with the carbons and that seemed to be the logical choice. I apologize to @AsGF2MX for not saying this earlier to save you some hassle. Just didn’t click in my head that I recently imaged these with this method. Best of luck in your future Fogging.