Problems multicasting fog on different vlans

[Yamakazi]

Hi guys,

I made a setup with a FOG server to distribute multicast images.
Just made a big post on the gns3 forums, but maybe it’s not gns3 thats not properly working but fog. So hence i’m posting here aswell.

My setup (and problem) can be viewed at the gns3 forum which have a lot of images
https://www.gns3.com/qa/fog-won-t-multicast-in-vlan-setu

I recently discovered some other problems

Multicast seems to be working if i test it.

Altough Fog is not multicasting properly

Do i need a storage node for each different vlan? i would like to avoid that though. Unicast is working fine, so not sure why multicast can’t find the image.

Any help or tips are appreciated. If you need more information, just ask and i’ll upload it!

Greets,
Bert

[Wayne Workman]

The errors in the log say image file:/images/Debian image not found!

Can you go into that directory and ensure files are there? Also - try to unicast using this image and see what happens, as part of troubleshooting.

[Sebastian Roth]

@Yamakazi The iperf multicast test you’re doing. Is this from one VLAN to another? If yes, then I think we need to take a closer look at how FOG is calling the udp-sender/-receiver commands to see why it is not working. But if you cannot make the multicast test with iperf work across VLANs then you need to check your network setup. Have you read through this already?

Looking at the configs pictures you posted I see “Incoming Interface: Null”. Not sure if this is right. Although I have to admit that I don’t do cisco-multicast-VLAN-configs on a daily basis. So I’d need to read the manuals. to see how this should actually be setup. So I am just pointing out what jumps to my eye.

192.168.x.1 might be a default router address within those networks. Not sure what cisco OSPF config is really doing. The TCP dup ACKs are definitely not nice. Not sure if this is somehow related - TCP is definitely not directly connected to UDP multicast but it might have the same root cause?! To be able to further check I’d need to take a look at the full pcap file. Feel free to upload here and I’ll have a look. Or send me a private message with a download link in case you feel this is to sensitive for the public eye.

[Yamakazi]

@Sebastian-Roth

The iperf multicast is from the fog server (cloud1) to vlan 11 (host7) and seems to be working. So i’m thinking my setup is alright…
Dhcp is reaching my hosts, i can unicast images to them so that all seems to be working properly.

“incomming interface: Null” where exactly are you seeing this?

My cisco knowledge is better then my fog knowledge, so i’m thinking i might not have properly setup fog?
OSPF is working fine and shouldn’t give any problems in this case. The TCP dub ACKs are indeed troublesome, but i’m not sure what they mean in this case.

what you mean with the full pcap file? where is it located? i’ll upload it right after.

@Wayne-Workman

Image is present and unicast is working. Could it have anything to do with permissions?

[Wayne Workman]

@Yamakazi Permissions on the images directory for troubleshooting purposes should be 777 (which you have), and ownership should be fog:root

chown -R fog:root /images

However I doubt this is the cause of the problems.

One serious question that I have is - for the VLAN where the fog server resides, does multicasting work there?

Have you looked through this article yet?
https://wiki.fogproject.org/wiki/index.php?title=Troubleshoot_Downloading_-_Multicast

There’s also this one:
https://wiki.fogproject.org/wiki/index.php?title=Multicast

[Yamakazi]

@Wayne-Workman

Just tested it and multicasting is also not working in the same subnet /vlan. This means i somehow didn’t properly setup fog.

I’ve been through those websites a bunch of times already.

Maybe i should go for a complete reinstall

any particular things i should focus on when setting fog up for multicasting?

[Wayne Workman]

@Yamakazi in the first troubleshoot multicast link, there are some commands to clear stuff out of the DB for it, and then try to restart the FOGMulticastManager and see what happens.

systemctl restart FOGMulticastManager or service FOGMulticastManager restart

For now, focus on multicasting on the VLAN the fog server is on.

[Wayne Workman]

@Yamakazi Also, it appears you’re using 1.2.0 ? There are some improvements in the Multicast area in FOG Trunk, the developmental version. Well worth the move in my opinion. Something specifically added is the ability to define a custom multicast and port address, should you want to customize it. Without those, the default broadcast address of the broadcast domain that the fog server resides within is used.

[Yamakazi]

@Wayne-Workman

I know when you install fog it asks for a mysql password, but i’ve left that blank.

Can i upgrade to the newer version? or do i need to do a fresh install?

[Wayne Workman]

@Yamakazi You can do either. Both work. You’re using bert Switch to root with sudo -i and then try.

[Yamakazi]

@Wayne-Workman

I also tried as root user. Check the image

[Wayne Workman]

@Yamakazi sudo -i

[Wayne Workman]

@Yamakazi Well if no password is set, root should have permission. Also - if root didn’t have permission, the fog web interface wouldn’t even work, as it uses local root access to MySQL.

Check if you have a password set on the DB, the credentials FOG uses to access it are in /opt/fog/.fogsettings

Also, you can check what’s set inside of config.class.php:
cat /var/www/html/fog/lib/fog/config.class.php

Additional reading:
https://wiki.fogproject.org/wiki/index.php?title=Password_Central
and
https://wiki.fogproject.org/wiki/index.php?title=Troubleshoot_MySQL

[Yamakazi]

@Wayne-Workman

I did a fresh install and managed to get multicast working in the same subnet but not in different vlans.
This is what i get when i’m in the database excuting those commands.

The .fogsettings file seems to be empty?
Config file is below

[Quazz]

@Yamakazi Just a guess, but try manually typing those commands, since I’m guessing mysql only accepts either ` or ’ and not both.

Could also simply do

TRUNCATE TABLE multicastSessions;
TRUNCATE TABLE multicastSessionsAssoc;
DELETE FROM tasks WHERE taskTypeID=8;

if you don’t care about any current multicast tasks.

[Yamakazi]

@Quazz

hmmm it keeps giving these syntax errors

i also tried troubleshooting by sending an udp packet as explained in link text

And i the same subnet it is working. When i try it with a client in a different subent i get this

The udp packet seems to stop there.

[Yamakazi]

I Made a new very basic setup with just the fog server a router and a host. I configured the router to allow multicast.

I get the same result, everything is working: dhcp, unicast etc. Just not multicast. So i think fog is causing the problems. I’m just really lost what is wrong. FOGMulticastmanger is active and working, the multicast settings in the webinterface are all correct. Dhcp and the image are working fine. Mysql still remains a mystery to me though. I’ve got no experiecne with it on linux so.

[Yamakazi]

From one of the wiki pages of fog it makes you check these files.

“Check the MySQL details in “/opt/fog/service/etc/config.php” are correct.
If not, correct them (they should be the same as in /var/www/fog/commons/config.php) and restart the service”

*

this can’t be right. There is not much in the first config.php file and the 2nd under commons doesn’t even exist.

[Quazz]

@Yamakazi That wiki is outdated due to relatively recent changes I believe

[Sebastian Roth]

@Yamakazi said:

FOGMulticastmanger is active and working, the multicast settings in the webinterface are all correct.

Checked the multicast.log? Do you see udp-sender processes in ps ax | grep udp?

I might be wrong but I feel that this is not a general FOG issue as we have a lot of users who are running multicast imaging just fine. What if you connect one FOG server and two or three clients just with one simple dumb mini switch? Not router!