Could we deploy FOG to do this? see body of message...

[elishasmantle]

Hello,

I might not have posted in correct area and if so please forgive me.

I’m just investigating and gathering info at this time to see if FOG would be a proper solution to our company needs.

The scenario is this:

We use defacto-standard vendor images with the recovery partition on the PC so the Hard Drive Image we would be imaging is just like it comes out of the box with a new PC.
We would have needs to image HDD with MS Win 8, 8.1, 10.
Nearly every OS is always 64 bit.
Almost all are UEFI
We are required to do a DOD standard wipe on every hard drive

I’m not an expert by any means, but the most simplistic method and streamlining I can think of is we would like for FOG to:
( This is assuming we already have FOG images created, named and stored on a server. )

1. Boot PC from PXE
2. Check and see if the HDD has been DOD wiped ( I assume this might be done by a script if we could tell it to format the drive as a single partition after DOD wipe and it check for a single partition because all functioning PC would normally have 4-5 partitions on them as standard)
   If no= start a full hdd DOD wipe ( It assumes if multiple partitions found =no)
   if yes= run script ( It assumes if single partitions found =yes)
3. Script runs and uses bios hardware information to gather vendor, make, model, etc…
   From script info of vendor/model searches images created names and from script criteria and image naming convention select images and auto starts the image.
4. Image completes - either leaves PC on with success or failure message or either shuts down success and leaves failed images on, or vice-versa?

This is a Really High Level simplified explanation I know, but in-a-nutshell that is what we want to accomplish and the more automated the better.

We would have a full separate LAN and I still have a lot more investigating to do as far as bandwidth usage, how many PC types can be imaged at same time with different images?

What we do is this:
We restore PC to factory images for our client.
We are able to reuse hdd if passes a hdd test
hdd must be DOD wiped
But our client uses HP, Dell, Sony, Lenovo, Toshiba, you name it.
We are currently manually restoring from physical media and we are in the upwards of about 500 systems a day and I think we have about 500-800 total different model types we support for our client.

we are getting into a huge bottleneck of the way we are doing our restore process and we need to find out a way to automate the process so that we can increase the number of images being restored per day and rid ourselves of some of the kaos we are experiencing.

I am open to suggestions of any kind or if someone call tell me the way FOG can help us but clarify the process we would need to use to do it. We are open to other possibilities like separating our network out and having a fog server for each vendor type if needed and other possibilities.

I will, after investigating and gathering data go to my team and see if I would be able to get approved for some type of pilot program.

Thank You,

Wayne

[Tom Elliott]

@elishasmantle if all you’re looking to do is wipe, then image, I would imagine the checking of whether or not it has been wiped is rather pointless. Just always run a DoD wipe then image. This method of booting through PXE is already required for fog to work anyway. From the sounds of it, you have too many variables to make this a fully automated setup. I say this because it seems, to me, that you aren’t requiring this systems to be registered as you get the systems, then do your imaging setup, then get them back out. Having PXE, or iPXE always trying to determine if a particular system has been wiped and/or needs to be images is not easily possible. So I’d reckon having your base image ready and just having the inits always do a DoD wipe, then image, is a much faster system then trying to make guesses and assumptions as to whether it has already been done or not.

[Junkhacker]

does the data just need wiped, or do you really need to comply with DoD 5220-22.M? because a true DOD wipe takes several hours, and is of dubious necessity with modern hard drives.

[elishasmantle]

@Junkhacker

I would need to find out specific on the required wipe, but currently our wipes take about 4 hours for a drive about 500gb and 6.5-8 hours for a drive up to 1 TB.
I’m not sure about minimum requirements for drive wipe and will find out.

[elishasmantle]

@Tom-Elliott
I worked in one company and a script was run to pull hw/make/model info and it directed the automated imaging to know which directory packages to run.

Is it possible, If I have all the images created and stored on a server to have it find a specific image to use for imaging that particular system?
E.G: an HP-15-223WM boots from PXE and it looks for image name HP-15-223WM and begins restore imaging process?

Thank You,

Elishasmantle

[ch3i]

@elishasmantle said:

Is it possible, If I have all the images created and stored on a server to have it find a specific image to use for imaging that particular system?
E.G: an HP-15-223WM boots from PXE and it looks for image name HP-15-223WM and begins restore imaging process?

Hi, You can register all of your hosts (manually via iPXE or via the new FOG client if you have windows client machine), create groups in FoG for each model, and link the model image with the model group.

[george1421]

@elishasmantle said:

Is it possible, If I have all the images created and stored on a server to have it find a specific image to use for imaging that particular system?

I have written scripts that take advantage of the fog postinstall function that will use the OS utility dmidecode to pick up the model number of the target system and then deploy (push) the correct drivers to a known folder on the target computer. For this to work correctly you need to update your reference image before you sysprep to have windows look in this known folder (c:\Drivers) before it looks at the inf folder for the drivers. I have one image that supports 15 different models using this method (i.e. they are all Dell computers).

The only other caveat I have to say is you need to ensure that you have all required F6 boot drivers install on your reference image before you sysprep it. These drivers are required to boot the system, so there is no chance to pick them up from the disk since the drivers are required to connect to the disk.

here is what I use to pick up the Dell model number

machine=`dmidecode -s system-product-name  | tr -cd '\60-\176'`;

And here is what I use to pick up the Intel NUC and Lenovo model numbers

machine=`dmidecode -s baseboard-product-name`;