Iphone App for Fog

[FlorphLawrence]

I have been spending some time over the last 24 hours developing an iPhone app to allow me to use my fog server while i am out around the school campus. I have got the hosts listing so far and also the ability to send WOL packets, I am waiting to test this tomorrow at work. I will be working on the for the next couple of weeks or so and should then be able to release it to the app store, (as long at the Fog Developers are ok with this). I will be using this most days and would like as much feed back as possible when it is released.

I will be including the following features to start with:

• Listing All Hosts
• Adding New Hosts
• Deleting Hosts
• Sending WOL Packets to Hosts
• Deploying Image To Hosts
• Uploading Image From Hosts

For the Future Updates i will be adding:

• Group Management
• Image Management
• Displaying Active Tasks
• Editing Hosts
• Fog Settings

I will upload some initial screen shots of this sometime tomorrow for you to give feedback on.

For those that would like more information, feel free to email me: [email]lawrence@florph.co.uk[/email]

Regards
Lawrence

[drjam]

Sweet!
Now to be reeeeally awesome, the geek community would love some android time too

But seriously, thats pretty cool, smart-device apps are useful. I hope any apple users will get to use it!

[Tom Elliott]

I can’t speak for Chuck or Jian, but I don’t mind. The more open we make FOG, the better we can make it as a whole.

[VincentJ]

Hopefully android can get something like this too

[Jaymes Driver]

[quote=“VincentJ, post: 17966, member: 8935”]Hopefully android can get something like this too[/quote]

I disagree, I don’t see a need to access via an app. You can access the server by IP address in a browser bar on any piece of equipment with a web browser connected to your network.

I fail to see where this would be anymore beneficial than the Web GUI, which would be easy to reconfigure to be “prettier” and “easier to use” if you took the time.

Your server should not be accessible to the outside world. If you were to set up a cloud management, then access would need to be available.

I’m happy to see people taking a notice in FOG an coming with new desires, but I think this is a disaster waiting to happen. And that’s my two cents

Maybe I don’t understand how you are going to make this available to be used with the server, perhaps some detailed explanation would be beneficial.

I’m not bashing anyone or attacking anyone, I just would not like for my server to be “live” I prefer having it safe here behind my walls.

[drjam]

dang, some good points.
with that in mind then:

internal use app
has large buttons
simple use only
View all hosts
view all images
Upload Image
Deploy Image

my app would have maybe 4 buttons as above.
So i could be working on a new machine and image it there, and not have to runover to a workstation or my main pc to do this.

[Tom Elliott]

See,

Jaymes et al.,

While I agree with the security aspect of it, with this being open as it is and the possibility of chainloading for gpxe and ipxe, I think having an openly (internet) accessible fog server is kind of a good idea. It would allow, potentially, a cloud based site for known working images for upload/download points, and relieve the strain of some sites requiring multiple fog servers for their setups. Point thru http/ftp dns names and have them image.

Just my two cents I guess.

[VincentJ]

Being able to walk around your site, and have your ‘device of choice’ available to quickly perform tasks could be useful.

I wouldn’t want an openly accessible fog server as we would then have to deal with licensing for Microsoft… Someone uploading the image could be putting their volume license keys or their retail keys out there… additionally, would Microsoft let us store a windows image on a public server?

Also, since an image can easily be 30gb or even hundreds of GB, having fog on the internet would mean that people would be using more than their ISP’s bandwidth cap or ‘fair use policy’.

An internal app would be nice, just like I have an app that does simple things in active directory, doing common things in FOG could be useful.

[Jaymes Driver]

[quote=“Tom Elliott, post: 17976, member: 7271”]See,

Jaymes et al.,

While I agree with the security aspect of it, with this being open as it is and the possibility of chainloading for gpxe and ipxe, I think having an openly (internet) accessible fog server is kind of a good idea. It would allow, potentially, a cloud based site for known working images for upload/download points, and relieve the strain of some sites requiring multiple fog servers for their setups. Point thru http/ftp dns names and have them image.

Just my two cents I guess.[/quote]

See this sounds to me more like the work of two servers, one that is public and communicates to the other non public server in your corporation.

Like I said I need detailed information on how this is going to be achieved before I’m jumping on this wagon.

[quote=“drjam, post: 17974, member: 16842”]dang, some good points.
with that in mind then:

internal use app
has large buttons
simple use only
View all hosts
view all images
Upload Image
Deploy Image

my app would have maybe 4 buttons as above.
So i could be working on a new machine and image it there, and not have to runover to a workstation or my main pc to do this.[/quote]

This sounds to me like a simple page linking back to FOG, this could be achieved by making a page on your public site accessible to the FOG internal site, of course authentication should ALWAYS be used.

When it comes down to it, the IP address of every machine is different, the app is going to need a way to input the server ip address, and it should be able to be changed easily. I manage multiple sites, while I can have storage nodes etc, I choose the option of full fledged servers per site. Everything installed in each building is a derivative of my “golden image” with the specifics of the building sown in. So if the ip address is an ip address to your building(s) how are you going to get it outside so that the app can talk to it?

I usually have a small tablet of some sort in my hands and I can always just hop on the wifi and hit the server ip and do what I need to, I’m still failing to see the benefits of having an app installed on my phone. Maybe I just don’t understand this completely.

[Jaymes Driver]

This post is deleted!

[drjam]

so maybe less of an app, more of a /mobile.html site page that we could each customise? or just have those four buttons on it:
[I][SIZE=12px]View all hosts[/SIZE][/I]
[I][SIZE=12px]view all images[/SIZE][/I]
[I][SIZE=12px]Upload Image[/SIZE][/I]
[I][SIZE=12px]Deploy Image

Edit: maybe needs “add new host” as well lol [/SIZE][/I]

[Tom Elliott]

I think that already exists. Under, the directory mobile. Instead of going to /fog, try /fog/mobile

[Jaymes Driver]

My point exactly Tom.

[Tom Elliott]

Well,

I’ve been spending a lot of my weekend working on the whole scheduled tasks thing you were probably already aware of. Then I started working on the mobile side. I am glad to say that it seems to be working. You can now login, create image tasks (download), and remove tasks using the mobile version of the program.

I’ve also, so far, got it where it can actually perform scheduled tasks, now I’m looking into getting it to remove the scheduled tasks properly. It does remove them, but maintains the DB records for some reason. You know that’s simple. My next feat will be to tackle getting the delayed/single deployment working from the pages themselves. Also the same with some quirkiness on the scheduled task stuff.

[FlorphLawrence]

Ok, Well i have been working on this app, and have made a part of it. {Screenshot Attached}.

I can understand all the points raised here, but with our school being nearly a mile in diameter i find that this is good for when out and you then need to re-image / add etc a computer but logging onto a computer and going to the Fog WebGUI takes too long and the mobile version is not that good (Only My Opinion).

At the end of the day i am mainly developing this app for my company and the schools that we look after, its up to you if you use it, i just thought that it some people would find it useful.

[ATTACH=full]411[/ATTACH]

[url=“/_imported_xf_attachments/0/411_iOS Simulator Screen shot 13 Oct 2013 21.35.30.png?:”]iOS Simulator Screen shot 13 Oct 2013 21.35.30.png[/url]

[drjam]

[quote=“Tom Elliott, post: 17996, member: 7271”]I think that already exists. Under, the directory mobile. Instead of going to /fog, try /fog/mobile[/quote]

Cool, I shoulda thought of just trying that…it makes too much sense now! lol

[quote=“Florph : Lawrence, post: 17999, member: 17035”]Ok, Well i have been working on this app, and have made a part of it. …, its up to you if you use it, i just thought that it some people would find it useful.

[ATTACH=full]411[/ATTACH][/quote]

looks cool guv. feel free to port it to android for when you upgrade to a smartphone hehehe
srsly, youve done good work too!

[Jaymes Driver]

Don’t get me wrong, I am proud of your accomplishments, I just want to fully understand the concept, with so many conspiring minds here that ultimately want to best operating safest server, I want to understand the process so we can make it more secure.

[Imperilled]

sounds great ! It would be nice !!

[VincentJ]

Does your wake button work for groups as well as hosts

Being able to boot up an entire lab for imaging all at once would save you even more time.