Issues creating master image
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Server
- FOG Version: 1.4.4
- OS: Ubuntu 16.04
Client
- OS: Windows 7
Description
I am new to FOG and to imaging in general and am having trouble following the wiki on how to create a master image for my environment. I am at a school and I’d like to create one staff image and one student image that will both work on 4 different pieces of hardware (HP workstation Z210, Z220, Z230, Z240). In searching through the wiki, I’ve found 3 different pages that each seem to outline slightly different processes and I’m having trouble getting any of them to work. The pages I’ve been following are:
https://wiki.fogproject.org/wiki/index.php?title=FOG_Client#FOG_Client_with_Sysprep
https://wiki.fogproject.org/wiki/index.php?title=Client_Setup#Setup_a_Default_Profile
So far I have the image I’d like to sysprep captured pre-sysprep and everything I’ve tried has resulted in me needing to re-deploy that image to the workstation I’m using and try again. If there is another post somewhere I missed or if someone can confirm one or multiple sets of instructions to follow, I have no problem putting some more hours into troubleshooting this issue, just trying not to spend too much more time following guides I don’t fully understand/I’m unsure are up to date.
Thanks in advance,
Cam -
I wish we had a concise wiki or tutorial for you.
You kind of have two options here
- Install all known drivers into your mother/reference image. This is the quickest and cleanest route. The downside here is that if you add a new hardware model you will need to recreate your reference image to include the new drivers.
- Only put the minimum drivers in your reference image and then use a fog post download script to copy the proper files to target computer. The last bit here is to ensure before you capture the reference image you tell windows where to find the files when OOBE starts.
Either route you must use sysprep since you are deploying a single image to multiple computers. (note I did not say anything about the fog client in this post).
If you want to go down path 2 then, I have a few tutorials I wrote on the subject too. https://forums.fogproject.org/topic/8889/fog-post-install-script-for-win-driver-injection/4
But as I said its not concise step by step as of yet.
The whole concept if my tutorial is to place the drivers on the target computer in a specific location where windows knows where to find them. As for Win10 you need to use an unattend.xml script with a certain section added to tell windows OOBE where to find the drivers. The link that I posted above, at the bottom of the post it explains what needs to be added to your unattend.xml file.
Now the question which route are you willing to go down. Route 1 is pretty quick but could add more time when a new hardware platform is introduced. Route 2 take more time to setup but you can make a true universal image that will work on any hardware platform Dell, HP, Lenovo assuming that you can get the drivers in a .inf format (not compressed .exe file). With the lenovos I’ve been known to borrow the OEM driver directory and use that with my master install process.
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Thank you, this is very helpful. I am thinking due to time constraints and a fairly static environment I’ll give option 1 a try first, then as time permits I can work on option 2 and have it ready for next year.
Just to be clear, I should install all drivers on the reference image, run sysprep, then register the host and capture the image through fog?
I’ll give this a go and report back with the results.
Thanks again,
Cam -
@CamGreezy You will install all drivers, install the fog service but setup as service disabled. Create a setupcomplete.cmd batch file to restart the fog client service as described in your first link.
Once that is done you run sysprep with the proper command switches to have sysprep power off the computer (this IS important to make sure the computer is powered off and all of the files are marked closed).
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Where exactly does one put the offline settings pass in the unattend to make sure it gets processed? I posted asking before about someones sanitized one to use as an example, but no luck…
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The process you described below worked great, feel free to mark this as solved and thanks again for your help and support, this software is going to make things a lot easier and more efficient for us here!!
