FOG without reserved IP addresses

[Alakuni]

Hi all
I’m a long time FOG user, who’s just moved from a large education business (3000+ hosts) to a small organization with about 300 PCs. In my new organization they dont have any network solution for deploying images to workstations, so I thought FOG could offer some real benefits.

However they operate a real dynamic DHCP set-up, with a minimal number of reserved IP addresses. As a result I cant really setup FOG host entries with associated IP addresses. In addition, I’m having to battle some reluctance to try FOG from my management, so setting blanket DHCP boot options pointing to the FOG server is a non-starter (at least till I’ve proved what can be done).

Doers anyone have any suggestions how I can image machines without reserved IPs or DHCP options pointing to FOG?

I’ve managed to create a bootable USB disk that can allow me to register hosts to FOG. I was hoping to use Quick Image to just image machines from there on. However I find that Quick Image basically queues a job on the server and then reboots the host so that it can do a PXE boot: this isnt going to work with the limitations described above.

Any ideas? Any way I can start a quick image directly from bootable media?

Thanks

[Tom Elliott]

So,

As you’re limited to the number of available DHCP addresses to hand out within your network, does your fog server have more than one interface?

You could install the DHCP Server tool onto the FOG Service and have it hand out requests through a specific interface. If you only have one interface, you can still do the same type of idea. Though it’d be better that your server is set to a static IP address if they at least provide the one. When you need PXE boot, have the FOG Server serve a range of IP’s outside the scope of your current setup.

For example,

Let’s say your 300 systems runs on the IP range of class B network: 172.16.xxx.xxx, (this ensures the 300 possible IP’s and then some) And you set your fog server to be dhcp for a class C network: 192.168.xxx.xxx. When the systems boot using ports 66/67, (PXE boot phase) they should pick up the IP address from the 192.168 series and be able to PXE boot to the fog server as it’s the only one handing out that IP range. When the systems boot up, they shouldn’t be requesting IP’s from the FOG Server, as they’ve already passed the TFTP phase of the process. I’ve never really had to test this too much, but if the FOG Server is handing out IP’s, you can set the scope inside the fog server to point the dhcp server to your main network so there’s less confusion.