How do I view what pre-boot architecture type a PC has?

[Yeet]

I’m looking into setting up FOG servers for multiple of our customers for simple workstation captures, and I’m worried about the pxe boot process with such a wide variety of PCs.

I currently have Windows DHCP set to look at the architecture type, then pick a bootfile based on that.

Is there a way to view what pre-boot architecture type a PC has? If I could do that, it would make my life much easier. Then I would be able to make the correct DHCP policies for each architecture, so I can avoid PXE boot related issues.

I’d be willing to share the DHCP policies to help others, I just need to figure this out first so I can get them configured correctly.

[george1421]

@yeet said in How do I view what pre-boot architecture type a PC has?:

I’m looking into setting up FOG servers for multiple of our customers

I just need to figure this out first so I can get them configured correctly

If you are functioning as an MSP or VAR and you are using FOG for deployment/captures I think I would go with dnsmasq running on the FOG server. This will give you the dynamic boot files needed without having to touch the customer’s infrastructure. The only issue is if the target computers are on a different subnet than the FOG/DNSMASQ server. I know of one VAR that would sell a Micro-PC cloning solution to customers. They would ship a NUC like device with a 500GB ssd installed for imaging with dnsmasq and the mobile fog configuration. The customer would just plug it into their network with no setup.

Is there a way to view what pre-boot architecture type a PC has?

Beforehand it would be kind of hard, you will have to query an operating OS to find out what firmware type it is using. The dhcp server knows this because of the DHCP DISCOVER packet.

FOG does have a wiki page on setting up windows dhcp server for uefi and bios coexistence if you wanted to use the customers dhcp server. https://wiki.fogproject.org/wiki/index.php/BIOS_and_UEFI_Co-Existence#Using_Windows_Server_2012_.28R1_and_later.29_DHCP_Policy

If you are using FOG as a poor mans backup system, there are better free solutions out there such as Veeam Agent (Free). Not only does it give you bare metal recovery it also gives you incremental backups since the last full system backup. You can also do file level recovery from the backup. FOG as a backup solution is the entire disk or not.

[Yeet]

@george1421 I had already used that article you linked to set up DHCP for UEFI and BIOS coexistence, but it only has information for 5 of the architectures (00002, 00006, 00007, 00008, 00009). I need to know what to point the remaining 4 types to, because there’s 4 remaining that don’t have any association.

That’s why I was wondering if there’s any simple way to view the boot architecture on any specific PC, so I could go PC by PC and set up the policies that way

[george1421]

@yeet If you look at the very top of that wiki page it actually explains all of the arch types.

           Type   Architecture Name
           ----   -----------------
             0    Intel x86PC
             1    NEC/PC98
             2    EFI Itanium
             3    DEC Alpha
             4    Arc x86
             5    Intel Lean Client
             6    EFI IA32
             7    EFI BC (EFI Byte Code)
             8    EFI Xscale
             9    EFI x86-64

Unless you think you might run across 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8 you probably won’t need to configure them. FOG Doesn’t have a iPXE boot loader anyway for those arch.