Wake-On-LAN via fog agent with brand new PC's
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Hi,
I am testing/using FOG project to manage imaging of our 6 PC labs, ~400 PC’s. I confirmed that I can power on a PC via FOG server Web UI, if there is an PC with active FOG agent on that subnet and also if the powered of PC was checked-in with fog agent before. It is working as expected.
What I wonder is, as I am just started to use FOG server and there is no fog agents on the PC’s, can I install fog agent to the PC that I will use to capture image, then somehow I instruct FOG server that the imported hosts are on the same network, so I can power on the PC’s without visiting all of them one by one?
I hope I explained I am trying to achieve.
Regards,
Rahman
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@rdr there is a feature in the fog agent (although untested at this point) that can tell the fog-agent to try to send a WOL packets. If an agent machine is up, and you need to wol a machine that’s on the same subnet, it can happen. It is disabled by default.
I think that’s what you were attempting to ask? I hope I didn’t butcher it too badly.
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@Tom-Elliott I think you mean “FOG_AGENT_WAKE_RELAY_ENABLED” setting. I already enabled it and it works as expected without any problems. But as I understand, it needs to know the IP addresses of the powered off hosts, so server can decide which alive fog agent it will use to relay WoL requests, am I right? This is OK and I tested, it works.
What I am after is different from “FOG_AGENT_WAKE_RELAY_ENABLED”. Lets say I have PC lab with 100 hosts, I import MAC and Host name list into FOG server. Then install Windows on one of them, install all needed drivers and applications. Then I install FOG agent and approve it. Then capture image from this. Then create deployment tasks for the remaining 99 PC’s. Then I want to send Wake on LAN request via this alive agent to the remaining PC’s so without me powered them on one by one physically, they will power on remotely and start to deploy image. But as FOG server does not know their IP addresses, as they have no fog agent installed previously, is there a way to teach fog server their IP subnet?
Hope it’s clear now
Rahman
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@rdr I don’t believe the FOG-Agent would be the right thing for this, and neither would the FOG Server.
In very old versions of FOG the IP address was a distinguishing factor of what a “host” was.
Relatively shortely after that became a norm, machines really started to come with multiple NICs, and/or with Wifi. That plus many systems prefering to move to DHCP for their networks (due to Wifi needs, and manual intervention to change an ethernet when a machine moved from one place to the other) FOG stopped trying to use the IP as a definition of what a host was.
WOL Works on macs and generally locally to the subnet the FOG server (or local machines) run on, but with some finagling you can send WOL packets on different network subnets.
Welcome the WOLBroadcast Plugin that already exists. I will admit I’ve not tested this plugin in quite some time now, so please see if that will be more what you’re looking for?
The FOG Agent shouldn’t be simply spamming your network with WOL packets just because it doesn’t know what is on the same subnet (to your initial point), but the FOG Server should be able to especially if you have your network already done for this.
I hope this helps with what you’re looking for. The FOG Agent, in my eyes, should only try to do things it knows about, instead of being a rogue “DDoS” vector.
