MAC address as host name - auto populate, etc.
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Hello,
I have a small issue where I was playing around with the FOG quick registration settings, and now something is wrong and/or I cannot get it back to its default behavior where it uses the MAC address (with no colons) as the hostname.Before today, I have never really used the FOG_QUICKREG_AUTOPOP but I have great reason to do so now, so any help with this would be greatly appreciated.
On a fresh FOG server install I had these settings:
FOG_QUICKREG_AUTOPOP 1
FOG_QUICKREG_IMG_ID 1
FOG_QUICKREG_OS_ID 1
FOG_QUICKREG_SYS_NAME *
FOG_QUICKREG_SYS_NUMBER 1With these settings, I thought that it would auto-populate and auto-name with the machine’s MAC address as its hostname and the FOG_QUICKREG_SYS_NUMBER would advance, but I cannot get that to happen again. I know that the key is in the FOG_QUICKREG_SYS_NAME, but how do I make that the MAC address again?
Now, the system names the machine 1, 2, 3, 4, according to the FOG_QUICKREG_SYS_NUMBER, or it actually names it *.
I have tried 0 (off), 1 (on) and * and all possible combinations in both FOG_QUICKREG_SYS_NAME and FOG_QUICKREG_SYS_NUMBER and I just cannot get it to use the MAC address as the name anymore (without colons) like it did upon a fresh install (default behavior). I guess that I do not have to touch FOG_QUICKREG_SYS_NUMBER, which is now up to the “next number in the sequence” - since I have only 9 total machines registered in this database, FOG_QUICKREG_SYS_NUMBER is now 10, and advancing correctly.
Any help with this would be greatly appreciated, because I really wanted to use the MAC address as the hostname (minus the colons) - I should have left it alone but I would rather not re-install, if possible.
Thank you for any help,
D.L. -
Where are you changing the settings from?
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From “Other Information”, “FOG Settings” - in the web UI.
Thanks!
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What does your <fogwebdir>/commons/config.php display?
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This is my settings:
FOG_QUICKREG_AUTOPOP 1
FOG_QUICKREG_IMG_ID -1
FOG_QUICKREG_OS_ID -1
FOG_QUICKREG_SYS_NAME PC-*
FOG_QUICKREG_SYS_NUMBER 1 -
Thanks for the reply!
I will have a look tomorrow, but I would think that it would be the same in config.php as in the web UI.
Besides auto pop being 1, yours are factory default settings, but the really strange thing is how with these settings it does make the MAC address (with no colons) the hostname, seemingly ignoring the PC-* convention. I’ve tried putting it back to these except for the Img ID and OS ID, setting those to Image 3, OS ID 5 for Windows 7 and it does not restore the MAC address convention.
I will try using -1 for the IMG and OS ID but it would be strange if those affected the naming convention of the hosts. It seems that once you touch these settings, you are from then on stuck with whatever naming convention you chose, with * as an optional sys_number variable, which is very strange.
I guess that I could re-install, but you would think that there would be a way out of this trap. If you have time, energy, and bravery (or a better test environment than me) try playing with these settings and you will see that it ditches the MAC address naming convention when you do. It is very strange to me that it ignores its own settings at first, using MAC address instead of sys_name, sys_number, then once you touch these settings you can’t get it back to MAC address naming convention.
Thank you for reading and for any help / advice!
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Maybe, try turning off the autopop itself. It would seem to me that, without autopop on, it wouldn’t be using any of the values themselves. It would be using the mac address, but with it on, it starts changing the name based on the iteration it’s working on. I’m sure you’ve already tried this, but you never really know. I don’t think the -1 values being changed should matter at all.
AUTOPOP off would be 0
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Actually, I did not try this because I really want to use autopop, but turning it off did restore the MAC address naming scheme! Thank you for the suggestion!
So, is it not possible to autopop with the MAC address and auto-image, etc? I would much rather use the MAC address than another naming convention (right now), but it seems like this is not possible if you want it to auto-image, which currently is more important. With autopop on, of course, I can set the all the variables and get it imaging as quickly as possible, but is there no wildcard, variable, etc. that you can put in the FOG_QUICKREG_SYS_NAME to get it to still use the MAC address during this process?
Thank you for your help, it is much appreciated!
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Forgive me for my confusion, but you’re, for now, looking to have the hostname’s autopopulate as their MAC address right? Is the reason you’re wanting this particular functionality simply so that the hosts obtain a specific OS and Image ID? That’s really the only reason I could think of for this particular request. I will look at the code and from a development stand point, this should be relatively easy to accomplish. I’ll try to post an update tonight.
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Okay,
I think I have a fix, at least for 0.33b
In the sysname field you just need to put in any variation of the word MAC, no stars or extra characters, just the word MAC and it will autopopulate with image id and os id based on your parameters with the hostname being set as the mac address. Is this what you wanted?
[url=“/_imported_xf_attachments/0/415_auto.register.php?:”]auto.register.php[/url]
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Here is the same file for 0.32 edited in much the same way!
For both versions, the file goes in:
{fogwebdir}/service/auto.register.php
Hope this helps you out!
[url=“/_imported_xf_attachments/0/416_auto.register.php?:”]auto.register.php[/url]
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Thank you so much for this, I cannot wait to try it out! I have to do some other less fun stuff this afternoon, but if there is not time to get to it, then I will do so tomorrow.
[I]“looking to have the hostname’s autopopulate as their MAC address right? Is the reason you’re wanting this particular functionality simply so that the hosts obtain a specific OS and Image ID? That’s really the only reason I could think of for this particular request.”[/I]
[I]- [/I]This is absolutely correct, but also it auto-starts the imaging process for newly “quick registered” hosts which makes it even simpler, faster, (and you don’t have to touch the web UI) especially if I am showing this process to another person. If I have already done the setup, all they have to do is set the boot order, wait for the PXE boot menu and select “Quick Host Registration and Inventory”, nothing more, which is dead simple and fast. This gets “new in box” machines out really quickly without an admin having to set OS ID, Image ID, and press Deploy, etc. - I would like to have a better naming scheme in the future (and it seems that the code is already in place for that!) but for now I am just going to go with the MAC address as the hostname.
Thank you again Tom, I really appreciate it. And as a big FOG fan, for me, this is a really great and useful mod. I will let you know how it goes soon,
D.L.
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r974 released with this modification.
NOTE TO ALL: If you use AUTOPOP with the SYS_NAME set as MAC, it will force the system to autoregister with the MAC address of the system and not set the hostname as: MAC
I doubt anybody’s doing this but you never really know!
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[SIZE=3]This worked like a charm, I really appreciate your help on this one!![/SIZE]
[SIZE=3]What might also be cool is possibly to introduce other optional variables to the auto-population scheme. I am really starting to use the auto-population a lot these days, and the “System Serial” I think would be quite a useful option. For some manufacturers this is an absurdly long string (why?) but in the case of Dell’s, HP’s, etc. it would be great! I honestly wish that they would all use a short, easily readable serial/tag like Dell, but for some reason they don’t…[/SIZE]
[SIZE=3]In my case we often name machines STE-ROM-*******[/SIZE]
[SIZE=3]where ******* would be the Dell, HP serial/tag.[/SIZE][SIZE=3]Thank you again,[/SIZE]
[SIZE=3]D.L.[/SIZE] -
Tom,
I’m sure that you are super busy but I would kind of like to revisit this. Would it be possible to make a similar modification so I can have “System Serial” as a variable in the quick registration process?HP’s are a bear, but for Dell’s this would be so sweet as the “System Serial” is only 7 characters. So the end result would be:
SITE-ROOM-*
Where * is the “System Serial” variable that the FOG registration collects.
Thanks for any advice or input (MAYBE I could try to do it myself), you’re the best,
D.L.PS - This is probably asking a lot, but maybe it could be truncated to 7 characters. Then it would work perfectly with Dell’s, and might work okay with other manufacturers…
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[quote=“rhythmtone, post: 29653, member: 57”]Tom,
I’m sure that you are super busy but I would kind of like to revisit this. Would it be possible to make a similar modification so I can have “System Serial” as a variable in the quick registration process?HP’s are a bear, but for Dell’s this would be so sweet as the “System Serial” is only 7 characters. So the end result would be:
SITE-ROOM-*
Where * is the “System Serial” variable that the FOG registration collects.
Thanks for any advice or input (MAYBE I could try to do it myself), you’re the best,
D.L.PS - This is probably asking a lot, but maybe it could be truncated to 7 characters. Then it would work perfectly with Dell’s, and might work okay with other manufacturers…[/quote]
The only problem I foresee with adding this is that it’d be either all or none. Meaning, I could add an identifier for SERIAL in the naming convention that get’s automatically changed to the SERIAL of the host being added. I could even add a modifier that replaces any instance of the word SERIAL with the Host’s serial number. That being said, we’ve got truncation added to the init that truncates the hostname to 15 characters which is the limit windows can handle. Where the problem comes in is if somebody wants the naming convention to be SERIAL-14, SERIAL-16.
This isn’t “that” difficult of a thing to add, but it’s also no simple manner. With the MAC naming system it was easy because the MAC was already being sent to perform the registration. The serial number, on the other hand, isn’t received or stored until after the host is registered, which means the name is already set. That being said, the beauty that is iPXE already has support to receive the systems serial, so I could actually pass the system’s serial number with the kernel arguments and be on our way to having this support. Where it becomes a problem is that serials aren’t standardized to a specific limit. While it would work beautifully on Dell systems, it will fail miserably on other systems.
I’ll try to take a look into this when I get home though as I’m sure others may want this functionality as well.
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Thank you for your time thinking this through!
I had not thought about the issues that you mention, you are definitely right that it is more complicated than it seems at first.
I guess even Dells would only allow 8 characters in the “prefix” to stay within the 15 character hostname limit :
SSS-RRR-*
And you make a good point that since it is not standardized, it would fail on many systems - ACER, and ASUS come to mind as their serials are 30 or so characters with the first 22 or so being the same, by model. The HP’s that I use have 10 characters in the serial, which would still work, but then that limits the prefix as it could no longer be 8 characters. However, I know that many folks just use SSS-* (where SSS is the site, and * would be the serial) and in this case something like this would support all Dells, and I believe all HPs.
Since it is not standardized, and would probably require truncation then perhaps it would be more trouble than it is worth, but I just wanted to ask about this.
Although it would be confusing, since FOG allows duplicate hostnames (and only really cares about the MAC) having truncated serials that result in duplicate hostnames would not be the end of the world, until you wanted to join / integrate Active Directory, just a thought.
Maybe this isn’t something that would be part of the main release but could be a modification, plug-in, etc. because it is complicated, and some folks might actually hate this…
Thanks again Tom, you’re the man!
D.L. -
Another thought, although probably even more complicated, would be to pass the system serial into “Computer Description” inside Windows which allows up to 1024 characters, I believe. I now have a better understanding of the pitfalls and cumbersome nature of having the serial as the hostname, so perhaps this would be an alternative to make the serial view-able and searchable inside Active Directory.
The goal of this is to be able to cross-reference the systems that FOG has touched inside Active Directory (by more than just a hostname), and passing the system serial to “Computer Description” might be a more elegant or alternative way of doing this. Originally I went down the MAC path because that accomplishes this to a certain level, but that has its downside too.
Your time, work, and thoughts are greatly appreciated,
Thanks again,
D.L. -
I realize that it would be necessary to modify the FOG Service to do the “Computer Description” idea, but in theory the code/connections are already somewhat setup for something like that, correct?
Can the FOG Service pull the serial from the SQL database? My guess would be yes, and then it would be a (not simple) matter of passing that into “Computer Description” - after that, the serial would appear inside Active Directory in quite an elegant way.
Thanks,
D.L. -
if your goal is to retrieve the serial number and set that to the description, you could just do that with a vbscript based snapin
