Image creation TFTP file

[TCS_Taylor]

A little quick background, I used to use FOG 0.3x many years ago at a school district I worked at. Back then we would occasionally have issues where the file created on the FOG server that made a PC perform a task thru TFTP (I believe it was named with the PCs MAC address) wouldn’t get cleared out after the task, and I would have to go into the server and manually delete the file.

Fast forward to today, I am working at a new job and setting up a FOG server. The current version of FOG uses iPXE, which is different than what FOG 0.3x used.

Does FOG still create a file with a name of the MAC address of the PC needing imaging, if so where? If not, how exactly does FOG let a PC know that it needs to be imaged when it PXE boots to the fog server?

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide!

Taylor

[Quazz]

I don’t really know 0.3, but now at least you can register the hosts (maybe you could already on 0.3) and send a deploy or capture task to them. (can even wake them if WOL is enabled and configured), once it boots to iPXE it will start its task.

I don’t believe it creates a file anymore for this, I think it’s handled by the database and iPXE parameters and all that good stuff. It still use MAC addresses to determine which host to use though, I believe.

It will create a folder with the MAC address if you’re capturing an image in /images/dev/ (default path) during the capture, with varous files in it, some of it containing disk UUID, partition information and such, so that FOG can handle things much better than before.

[Junkhacker]

@TCS_Taylor files are no longer used the way they were in FOG 0.3x
ipxe can request the files over http instead of just tftp like pxelinux could, so we generate the boot information on demand using php.

[TCS_Taylor]

First, thank you SO much for your uber prompt replies, much appreciated!
Now is when I wish I knew more about PHP.

@Junkhacker , can you point me to the php file that generates the boot information on demand?

I’m trying to capture an image, and am getting the below error. I was hoping to modify the boot information to include the ‘ro’ mount option as a test. I’m guessing I’m getting this error because the PC is in audit mode while I’m trying to capture the image…

[Quazz]

@TCS_Taylor Does it need to stay in audit mode? Might be better off running sysprep so it can shutdown cleanly and be ready for capture.

Is this Windows 8-10? If so, turning off Fast Startup in Energy Management in Windows might also do the trick, but it might indeed be tripping up due to audit mode.

[TCS_Taylor]

Gold star goes to @Quazz! It was the Fast Startup that was hanging things up. Turned it off and the image is uploading just fine.

I’m grabbing images at various stages of creating my golden image, so as to be able to roll back if need be, so I definitely want to be able to take an image in audit mode.

Thanks again for your help folks!

Taylor

[Sebastian Roth]

@TCS_Taylor The PHP giving you the iPXE boot information is /var/www/fog/service/ipxe/boot.php. You can access it simply using your browser http://172.28.6.149/fog/service/ipxe/boot.php
This will show you the default iPXE menu for unregistered clients. If you want to see the code for a particular client you need to add it’s MAC address as GET parameter, e.g. http://172.28.6.149/fog/service/ipxe/boot.php?mac=00:0c:29:c6:61:5a

[Quazz]

@TCS_Taylor After sysprep you could technically just go into Audit mode again, but of course it would take more time to do so.