Host Machine and images
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Quick simple (I hope question)
Machine “A” = registered hostname “A” is loaded with image “img_A”
Lets say:
Img_A is windows 7
Img_B is Windows 10If I wanted to load a new image say “img_B” into machine A and capture it, do I have to unregister the machine first?
I would seem the what I just experienced was
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Machine" A" with “img_A” (with Windows 7) was captured and saved on fog. So img_A = Windows 7
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Install “img_B” (with Windows 10) on to machine “A”, then attempt to capture the image.
Result. img_A is now Windows 10 and img_B has zero Data.
Did I miss a step in the process?
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Simply assign Img_B to the host, deploy the image to it, then capture it and it will capture to Img_B
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So it seems like host is the image and not so much the actual machine itself then?
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@wcheung let switch this a bit.
What you do in fog is create image definitions first. (i.e. Image name Win7ENTX64, Win10ProX64 and so on.) Then you register your hosts. And then you connect your host to A single image definition.
So if you capture to host “123” and host 123 is connected to Win7ENTX64 the captured image will be saved to Win7ENTX64 imaged definition. So now if you change host “123” and connect it to image definition Win10ProX64 and recapture from host 123 the image will be saved in image definition Win10ProX64.
Now lets add host 234 to the mix. You connect it to image definition Win10ProX64. And schedule a deploy to host 234. The win10 pro image will be pushed to host 234.
This gives you a many hosts to a single image. Now lets say you want to reimage host 234 as a win7 image. Just connect it to the Win7ENTX64 image and schedule a deploy.
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Yep. Hosts and images are not the same thing.
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I think I understand, I will play around. I’m glad I used norton to capture an image prior so my didn’t lose an data really.
Also this maybe a bit off topic, but I wanted to share this on the forums, it would seem a machine registration is based on its MAC address it would appear.
What i find interesting is that Lenovo X1 Carbons (Gen 1 - 4) do not have ethernet ports, it used a proprietary connector OR a USB3.0 ethernet adapter that have a MAC id on them. So when I use the same ethernet adapter FOG sees it as the same registered host. I
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@wcheung That is correct the mac address is typically a unique item per machine.
I would have to ask how do you plan on using FOG in your environment? Will you use FOG for only image deployment or will you use FOG to manage the target computers (such as deploying applications post imaging)?
Your approach will be slightly different depending on if you will use fog for only imaging or system management.
If you are only doing imaging then you can use the quick image function of the iPXE menu just to push an image to the target computer. If you want to use fog to manage your clients, you will need to register them with the usb ethernet adapter, image the computer then manually update the mac address of the carbons to match the wifi mac address. That will free up the usb network adapter mac address for the next registration. Its a bit more cumbersom this route but then you can push applications post imaging (because fog uses the fog system id and not the mac address) without issue.
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@wcheung said in Host Machine and images:
I think I understand, I will play around. I’m glad I used norton to capture an image prior so my didn’t lose an data really.
Once you see how it works you will understand the concepts here. One other thing I should mention. After you upload your golden image to the FOG server, go back into image management and for that image select the protected check box. This will keep you from accidentally overwriting your golden image (if you happen to hit capture again).
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@wcheung said in Host Machine and images:
What i find interesting is that Lenovo X1 Carbons (Gen 1 - 4) do not have ethernet ports, it used a proprietary connector OR a USB3.0 ethernet adapter that have a MAC id on them.
Fog can work with these devices fine. They have Wifi MAC addresses that would be used for management through FOG after imaging is over. If you have many of these devices there will be a little more effort for re-imaging if you’re environment is not mega-automated. If your environment is not mega-automated then the workload is not higher.
