Custom iso from custom task

[Zaarin]

Server

• FOG Version: 1.3.4 SVN 6066
• OS: Ubuntu 14.04 trusty

Client

• Service Version: None
• OS: None

Description

Hi,

I successfully created and ran a fdos iso from fog. The aim is to upgrade BIOS and then reboot automatically. Some other iso will follow to customize the BIOS.

The plugin ‘tasktypeedit’ is installed and, of course, an iPXE entry created.

Is there a way from the fog management to start a custom task and boot my custom ISO? I don’t want to spend too much time to upgrade 600 computers on a site of 10 hectares.

I read this post about the same subject but I don’t unterstand how I have to do.

link

Many thanks for your help,

Zaza.

[Wayne Workman]

I’m going to ask @Tom-Elliott to help with this one.

I know it’s possible to do and you’ve already found the thread with the best stuff in it for this project. And that’s about all I can say on the matter at the moment.

[Zaarin]

Thanks.

Zaza.

[george1421]

What hardware do you have on your campus for the target computers?

What you have asked can be done simple with Dell hardware, Windows OS and FOG snapins.

[Zaarin]

Yes, correct but… there is always a “but”… I have HP computers as well.

If what I want is possible, I will use FOG to boot computers on a custom linux iso or something else for specific request from the teachers.

I asked to the fog team not only for upgrading the bios but also for other purpose.

[Wayne Workman]

Asking @Tom-Elliott to look at this again in-case he forgot.

[george1421]

@Zaarin Looking into this a bit. I dug around and found my old syslinux pxe menu. Here is a fragment of that menu

	label Clonezilla Live
		MENU LABEL Clonezilla Live
		kernel /drbl/vmlinuz
		append initrd=/drbl/initrd.img boot=live live-config union=aufs nolocales edd=on noswap nosplash nomodeset noprompt vga=788 ocs_live_keymap="NONE" ocs_live_run="ocs-live-general" ocs_lang="en_US.UTF-8" fetch=tftp://10.96.150.59/drbl/filesystem.squashfs

	label undis3c
		MENU LABEL Universal PXE NIC
		kernel memdisk
		append initrd=unattended/undis3c.imz keeppxe

	label Centos52
		MENU LABEL Centos52
		kernel bootimages/centos52/c52vmlinuz
		append initrd=bootimages/centos52/initrd.img

	label dodshort
		MENU LABEL DBAN Drive Eraser DOD 5220-22m (short)
		MENU PASSWD #SoftKitty1#
		kernel dbkernel.bzi
		append initrd=bootimages/dban_ird.gz root=/dev/ram0 init=/rc nuke="dwipe --autonuke --method dodshort" silent

	label dban
		MENU LABEL DBAN Full Package
		MENU PASSWD #SoftKitty1#
		kernel memdisk
		append initrd=bootimages/dban.imz

The notable thing here is that I was using memdisk to boot (at the time) was a bootable 1.44MB floppy disk image file (.img)

Now if you have the Tasktypeedit plugin installed. There is also a memtest function listed there and you can inspect how that task is invoked. The notable fields are Kernel and Kernel Arguments. One could blend my syslinux menu and the memtest menu to be able to send a bootable floppy image file to a target computer.

According to the syslinux wiki you can also do the same concept with an iso image.
ref: http://www.syslinux.org/wiki/index.php?title=MEMDISK

The only 2 caveats I see here are:

1. your target computer must have enough ram to hold the iso image completely and enough remaining ram to run the application on the iso image.
2. Since this is not a FOG generated task, there is nothing to clear the task from the active queue. Here is the warning from the memtest task
   Memtest86+ loads Memtest86+ on the client computer and will have it continue to run until stopped. When you are done, you must remember to remove the PXE file, by clicking on "Active Tasks" and clicking on the "Kill Task" button.