Bootable USB stick v1.2.0

[Wayne Workman]

Tough subject. This is something I’ve messed with, left, and came back to mess with again. The instructions there are outdated a little bit and those steps don’t work verbatim.

Why do you need a bootable fog stick? Are you wanting to image without the network or with it using USB boot media?

[cberm41]

This post is deleted!

[cberm41]

@Wayne-Workman I have come across some PCs were the BIOS has to be updated or the port has to be configured on the switch ( enable port fast ). Sometimes we are on the go and would like to get it done as quick as possible without extra intervention. We also have students that help image computers and are limited to what they can do. This would be a quick fix in case they have issues PXE booting. It would be easier to send the image directly to the fog server at each site versus uploading then transferring the image files to different servers.

[Wayne Workman]

@cberm41 said:

It would be easier to send the image directly to the fog server at each site versus uploading then transferring the image files to different servers.

That part isn’t clear, could you elaborate?

And I understand your reasoning for the USB stick though. I’ll give it another try and we’ll see what happens. Don’t wait for me though - by all means - you keep trying too.

[Tom Elliott]

Why not use the Location Plugin to do the transfers for you?

Heck, if you update to the Development versions, you don’t even have to setup rsync tunnels.

You can install the Nodes how you see fit. I’d recommend, for your case, to install all the servers as “Full Servers”, and then once the installation is complete edit the /opt/fog/.fogsettings file to use:
snmysqluser=‘fogstorage’
snmysqlpass=‘fogstoragepasswordfromfogsettings’
snmysqlhost=‘IP.OF.Main.Server’

This way, all the fog servers at all of the buildings communicate to a single server.

THen you create your storage nodes based on the information of the other fog servers.

Create the appropriate groups as necessary.

Assign the images to the groups you want the images to “cross” between.

That way you have a centrally managed server, with pxe boot setup locally at each building.

The location plugin will attach to the hosts that belong at that particular building.

But i digress.

[Tom Elliott]

Oh and the development versions of iPXE supposedly help address portfast problems. BIOS issues, just try using the undionly.kkpxe file instead of the undionly.kpxe.

[Wayne Workman]

@Tom-Elliott said:

Oh and the development versions of iPXE supposedly help address portfast problems. BIOS issues, just try using the undionly.kkpxe file instead of the undionly.kpxe.

I would suggest moving to Fog Trunk in light of Tom’s post, and switching to undionly.kkpxe

I’ll try to build a fog USB stick but there are no guarantees on success, if you know what I mean.

Here’s an article about upgrading to FOG Trunk: https://wiki.fogproject.org/wiki/index.php/Upgrade_to_trunk

[cml]

The ISO in this thread should still work: https://forums.fogproject.org/topic/4782/help-usb-boot-fog/27

You can write it to your USB drive with dd if=ipxe.iso of=/dev/sdb bs=4M Just replace sdb with your drive.

[cberm41]

Thank you for your help everyone! I am going to download the iso and upgrade one of my servers to trunk tomorrow. We have about 54 different sites (25,000 computers) and it would be nice to get everything centralized just like Tom recommended. Does FOG offer onsite/remote support services?

[cberm41]

@cml IT WORKED GREAT! Thanks again.