2019...a step by step activating ssl and complying iPXE with it

[Tom Elliott]

@marted why not access the fog server using foglabunix? The cert is valid for that name

[marted]

@Tom-Elliott I run the installation only with -S and root like @Sebastian-Roth Sebastian offered. The installation passed with no problems. Monday morning will try the boot and will post it here

[marted]

@Tom-Elliott it doesn’t work
it passed only with the IP NAT 132.208

[Tom Elliott]

@marted can you add a dns entry on the nat side to get you access? For internet proper links I wouldn’t recommend using the fog ca, you should probably get a proper certificate from a 3rd party to present for internet based sites.

[marted]

@Tom-Elliott if I get a 3rd party certificate which I can do, how can I replace the fog certificate?

[Tom Elliott]

@Tom-Elliott even better, use a reverse proxy for internet to redirect into your internal network and present the certificate at the reverse proxy. This way you can use a dns name that points to a machine within your dmz, that can be restricted to internal machines. And you aren’t putting your actual fog server in any risk as all things requesting your fog server from the internet won’t actually give access to your fog server files. At least not by simply pointing to your nat side ip. You could, essentially, get rid of the nat network for your fog server in this way too.

[Tom Elliott]

@marted you tell Apache using a namedvirtualhost config. So 192.x and foglabunix are handled by the fog ca certificate and the nat ip request is handled by the 3rd party certificate.

[marted]

@Tom-Elliott we have a restrict proxy installed in our university. To access 132.208 network to the university I need to use private VPN configured and managed by the university. Once I activated the VPN with a private password now I have access to my 132.208 NAT. without VPN nobody from the network cannot access it. All I show you is with a VPN to the university ON. The point is to use 132.208 with VPN on and ssl not to use a computer in the lab 192.168

[Tom Elliott]

@marted if you’re connecting over vpn, why would need to assign a public ip to the fogserver?

I guess I don’t understand the complexity involved here. If you have to access vpn to reach the fog server, why would you access it over public up spaces? VPN puts you to the internal network. You should be able to access the machine locally when connecting over VPN.

I understand security and all but this seems more complicated than secure.

[Sebastian Roth]

@marted Your setup is kind of special so there is no common solution to it. But we can try some workaround:

1. edit /opt/fog/.fogsettings and change the line hostname=foglabunix to hostname=132.208.x.y
2. re-run the installer this time using the command line parameters to re-create CA keys: ./installfog.sh -S -C -K
3. download and import the newly generated https://132.208.x.y/fog/management/other/ca.cert.der into your browser

[Tom Elliott]

Understand:

VPN is intended to allow external access to internal resources. Maybe I don’t understand your situation. That’s okay, I don’t need to, but this is seeming to be extremely convoluted.

1. You have local private spaces machines who access fog via local private calls: eg foglabunix or 192.168.x.x

2. You have VPN to access public up space with no DNS and only accessible through VPN connectivity? Why this? If the purpose of the VPN public IP is to get access to the fog server, why do VPN to a public IP that’s only accessible when VPN is enabled? Why not have the VPN connect so you can reach the local resources as they stand.

3. Reverse proxy != to proxy. It works in reverse. Meaning instead of all internal to external traffic being filtered to it, all external requests come to it and send to internal resources. It shouldn’t require login as it’s meant to be a central request point. Meaning it doesn’t give away local resources but provides the local resources you are requesting through the reverse proxy. So you don’t run risk of ssh attacks to multiple machines and whatnot.

[marted]

@Sebastian-Roth thanks for the complete explanation about reverse VPN. Maybe me with my poor English, I’m not capable to explain you in details like I want the network configuration in the university (unfortunately we speak french here in Quebec, Canada better than English:) ), but I truly understand what you wrote and I appreciate the time you spent for that.
Everything works fine now, I was capable to generate a second certificate with 132.208 and I installed in my access computer. Thanks again.

[marted]

@Sebastian-Roth I reinstalled With the options you suggested -S -K -C and web aces fro my home worked fine but this morning when I tried to boot a computer in my lab it gives permission denied error. I checked the error on the website of iPXE it says problem with the certificate. I reinstalled the server two times once only with -S only (same error) and second time with -S -C - K I thought maybe iPXE was not compiled well , but still same error. Before l’installation I fixed the .fogsetings with the real IP 192.168…
the permissions are correct for iPXE in var/www
Any suggestions? Thanks!

[Sebastian Roth]

@marted Manually run the compile script to see if it throws any errors:

cd fogproject/utils/FOGiPXE
./buildipxe.sh

[marted]

@Sebastian-Roth no errors . Do I have to copy the new files compiled manually to /tftpboot ?

[marted]

@Sebastian-Roth reinstalled complitly FOG like http (I deleted everything , left only /images and users). Works fine
It boots well in http. reinstall again only with -S , again the same problem.
output from https://192.168.149.43/fog/service/ipxe/boot.php in web broser . I even changed the permissions of the boot.php file on the server but no effect

#!ipxe
set fog-ip 192.168.149.43
set fog-webroot fog
set boot-url https://${fog-ip}/${fog-webroot}
cpuid --ext 29 && set arch x86_64 || set arch i386
goto get_console
:console_set
colour --rgb 0x00567a 1 ||
colour --rgb 0x00567a 2 ||
colour --rgb 0x00567a 4 ||
cpair --foreground 7 --background 2 2 ||
goto MENU
:alt_console
cpair --background 0 1 ||
cpair --background 1 2 ||
goto MENU
:get_console
console --picture https://192.168.149.43/fog/service/ipxe/bg.png --left 100 --right 80 && goto console_set || goto alt_console
:MENU
menu
colour --rgb 0xff0000 0 ||
cpair --foreground 1 1 ||
cpair --foreground 0 3 ||
cpair --foreground 4 4 ||
item --gap Host is NOT registered!
item --gap -- -------------------------------------
item fog.local Boot from hard disk
item fog.memtest Run Memtest86+
item fog.reginput Perform Full Host Registration and Inventory
item fog.reg Quick Registration and Inventory
item fog.deployimage Deploy Image
item fog.multijoin Join Multicast Session
item fog.sysinfo Client System Information (Compatibility)
choose --default fog.local --timeout 3000 target && goto ${target}
:fog.local
sanboot --no-describe --drive 0x80 || goto MENU
:fog.memtest
kernel memdisk initrd=memtest.bin iso raw
initrd memtest.bin
boot || goto MENU
:fog.reginput
kernel bzImage32 loglevel=4 initrd=init_32.xz root=/dev/ram0 rw ramdisk_size=275000 web=https://192.168.149.43/fog/ consoleblank=0 rootfstype=ext4 storage=192.168.149.43:/images/ storageip=192.168.149.43 loglevel=4 mode=manreg
imgfetch init_32.xz
boot || goto MENU
:fog.reg
kernel bzImage32 loglevel=4 initrd=init_32.xz root=/dev/ram0 rw ramdisk_size=275000 web=https://192.168.149.43/fog/ consoleblank=0 rootfstype=ext4 storage=192.168.149.43:/images/ storageip=192.168.149.43 loglevel=4 mode=autoreg
imgfetch init_32.xz
boot || goto MENU
:fog.deployimage
login
params
param mac0 ${net0/mac}
param arch ${arch}
param username ${username}
param password ${password}
param qihost 1
isset ${net1/mac} && param mac1 ${net1/mac} || goto bootme
isset ${net2/mac} && param mac2 ${net2/mac} || goto bootme
param sysuuid ${uuid}
:fog.multijoin
login
params
param mac0 ${net0/mac}
param arch ${arch}
param username ${username}
param password ${password}
param sessionJoin 1
isset ${net1/mac} && param mac1 ${net1/mac} || goto bootme
isset ${net2/mac} && param mac2 ${net2/mac} || goto bootme
param sysuuid ${uuid}
:fog.sysinfo
kernel bzImage32 loglevel=4 initrd=init_32.xz root=/dev/ram0 rw ramdisk_size=275000 web=https://192.168.149.43/fog/ consoleblank=0 rootfstype=ext4 storage=192.168.149.43:/images/ storageip=192.168.149.43 loglevel=4 mode=sysinfo
imgfetch init_32.xz
boot || goto MENU
:bootme
chain -ar https://192.168.149.43/fog/service/ipxe/boot.php##params ||
goto MENU
autoboot

[Sebastian Roth]

@marted said in 2019...a step by step activating ssl and complying iPXE with it:

no errors . Do I have to copy the new files compiled manually to /tftpboot ?

Yes, after manually running the compile script you need to copy the new iPXE files from fogproject/packages/tftp/ to /tftpboot/ directory!

If you use the installer it will do the copy for you.

reinstall again only with -S , again the same problem.

I am wondering if the modification I told you to test is causing the problem. As I said, your setup is special and not something many people have tried before. I will do a test install and see if it works for me.

[marted]

@Sebastian-Roth thank you. Meanwhile I switched to http and continuing with my tests. It works fine like always on http. I have an impression that iPXE doesn’t get the correct certificate or doesn’t compile it at all.
How can I checked that?

[Sebastian Roth]

@marted I just did a plain test:

1. Clean Debian 10 install (from my point it shouldn’t matter which OS you use but just noting it here in case you’d ask - I had a ready set VM at hand so I took that for testing).
2. Installed FOG 1.5.7 using no parameters, just ./installfog.sh
3. Tested PXE boot on http:// works fine
4. Edited /opt/fog/.fogsettings and changed hostname= as mentioned earlier
5. Re-ran the installer and let it regenerate CA, key and certs: ./installfog.sh -S -C -K
   (6. Opened web UI, checked the certificate and found the changed alternative name in there - just a test to see of my changed hostname setting results in a changed certificate - it does)
6. PXE booted client, this time https:// and works perfectly fine!

I have an impression that iPXE doesn’t get the correct certificate or doesn’t compile it at all.
How can I checked that?

I guess you are right with this. Unfortunately I don’t know a method to check if the iPXE binaries do have the right certificates injected other than PXE booting them.

In some of the pictures you posted I noticed that you seem to run the installer as sudo ./installfog.sh. Please don’t do this! It can have side effects that may cause issues. Change to a proper root shell (using sudo -i or sudo su -, the last hyphen is important!) for running the installer!

Beside that you might check file modification to see if the iPXE files are being updated properly:

ls -al /home/foglabunix/Desktop/fogproject/packages/tftp/undionly.kpxe
ls -al /tftpboot/undionly.kpxe

[Sebastian Roth]

@marted Yust in case you are still keen to use FOG with HTTPS: https://forums.fogproject.org/topic/14115/boot-php-permission-denied