Could you provide a tutorial for Fog within VirtualBox
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Hi,
I am trying to test the capabilities, install procedure and usability of Fog and want to do this within the latest version of VirtualBox.
I have downloaded version 10.04 of Ubuntu, as that is the supported version for the latest version of Fog, but I cannot seem to get anything working.
Is there any chance somebody could provide a tutorial, for beginners, that goes through the setting up of a Virtual Box VM (with the correct settings for Fog), installing Ubuntu/Fog on one VM, then having a client VM boot through PXE and run memtest or something.
I don’t know where my problem lies, installation, configuration, VM settings. It would be really helpful if a simple, concise guide was available. If I could get it working I would create one myself but unfortunately I have had no luck.
Thank you in advance for your help.
Kind Regards
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I have a test Fog Server currently running off of Virtual Box. When you are using Virtual Box you need to make sure the settings for network adapters (on Virtual Box) are set to bridged and that is using the ethernet port of your Host box. Below is an example of my settings. The installation of Fog itself is the same as the user guide. If you are connecting your client computer to your host computer and are using Windows you will need a cross over cable or a switch to get this to work as well. Hope that helps.
[url=“/_imported_xf_attachments/0/103_Network Settings for VBox.jpg?:”]Network Settings for VBox.jpg[/url]
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If I get time I’ll try to throw something together.
In the interim if you could please provide us (the community) with some more information on how your network is set up (VLAN / layer 2 / etc.), what types of equipment you are running, what type of hardware you are running, and what OS you are wanting to image / capture / and deploy. The more information we have on your specific situation the better we can help make sure things get up and running.
Work has got me extremely tied down, but it doesn’t mean I don’t reply to email or the forums, but throwing a quick video together is possible by me… just takes well… time ^_^
Thanks.
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Thank you both for your prompt replies. The test setup will be using solely Virtual Box where my host machine is Windows 7 64bit, Virtual Box 4.1.12 with Ubuntu 10.04 (x86) VM server and n number of client VM’s (all of which will be x86).
Once I am happy I understand the setup within Virtual Box I wish to do the following:
I have a single (x64) server, running Ubuntu (10.04, x64) with 2 NIC cards. NIC card 1 will link to a small 16 port 10/100 Mbps unmanaged switch connecting to 15 client computers (all x86 only). The second NIC will connect to another 16 port 10/100 Mbps unmanaged switch connecting to 14 client computers (all x64 only). There is a third NIC on the PC (on board Ethernet) which I am using as a debug bridge into the PC from the other side of the site (as this small, home style, network is isolated from the company domain).
From a single instance of Fog (which by the way, is the best solution I have found to date), I want to be able to distribute OS’s to any one of the 29 machines connected to the server. Majority of the client machines have SATA 2 HDD’s, connected via on board Ethernet, middle range Business class hardware.
The original post is regarding the configuration of Fog within Virtual Box, having a server VM and a client VM, however, if you could provide information on replicating my production setup in Virtual Box or setting up my production setup, that would be greatly appreciated.
If there is anything that I could put back into the community, (VM clones, documentation, screenshots, setup logs etc), let me know and I would be happy to provide them.
Many Thanks
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Tnoble I had some time to think about your request over lunch today and instead of re-creating the wheel, have you thought about converting one of the pre-supplied vmware images over to virtualbox? We currently have a VM of 0.29 on sourceforge that should be able to be converted over to virtualbox for you.
I think the VM’s are all x86, and to be honest I haven’t noticed too much of a performance increase or change in overall speed and issues between both distro’s (both ubuntu). Try converting one of the VM’s first - [url]http://zeldor.biz/2010/12/convert-vmware-image-vmdk-to-virtualbox-image-vdi/[/url]
edit
Here is the 0.27 release of fog on sf (which is upgradable) - [url]http://sourceforge.net/projects/freeghost/files/FOG_VM/fog_vm_0.27/[/url] -
ssx4life, I shall have a go at loading one of the pre-built VM’s into Virtual Box tomorrow evening. My main concern is that I will miss part of the installation process when setting up the production environment, but, I expect this can be overcome be traversing through the user guides on the Wiki pages a few times.
I shall keep you updated on progress as I go. Hopefully, once this initial testing stage is done, I should be integrating the solution into the production environment within a month or so. My existing solution, a combination of consumer version of Windows 7, TFTPD32 and a few Windows Shares is so unreliable I want to get something better in place ASAP.
Thanks for your help so far, I look forward to posting on my successes with Fog over coming days/weeks.
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tnoble no problem
FYI I just tested the 0.27 image in Virtual Box and it works great.
Works just fine on my end, and you can quickly upgrade to .032 to test things out.
enjoy
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FWIW the user guide for setting up fog on VM Ware is the same as Virtual Box, the only difference is as Teena pointed out. Make sure that you bridge the connections.
I also would suggest using Ubuntu 10.X vs. 11 (11 just didn’t work well for me). I use 10.X desktop due to wanting to have a GUI.
Let me know if you have any other questions or need help
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Anyone have any luck with baremetal box with FOG and creating gold images in VB? I can create them all day long, but never get a successful drop onto a machine. Super frustrated after a week. It shouldn’t be this hard…
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I too am really interested in a VM tutorial, one to deploy existing Images into on a temporary basis.
Essentially, I’m administering fog for a community college campus that needs some way to open the image (temporarily) and pull a few files. I’ve been at a standstill on this. -
Not to leave people hanging or trying to pick up the pieces, but I have been absent from this project and many other items recently due to family issues, so I apologize for not keeping up with requests or being active on supporting this documentation at this time.
In regards to a VM tutorial perhaps someone could volunteer some time to look into this. However at this time I don’t have time and or resources to dedicate to this.
If things change you’ll be the first to know. Feel free to PM me if you have any questions and I’ll try to get back to ya’ll when I have time.
Thanks in advance >_<
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I currently have FOG in virtualbox on my home system so I can help troubleshoot and test things out when I’m not at work. I have a master FOG server running 0.32 on Ubuntu Server 10.04 LTS, a storage node running FOG 0.32 on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS, and a client running Windows 7. I made them all part of the same private network so I can pxeboot my clients without affecting any other part of the network.
I have never done a video tutorial before, but i can do a written one pretty easily.
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Take a look at [url]http://www.fogproject.org/wiki/index.php/User:Chad-bisd/Using_FOG_in_VirtualBox[/url]
It’s not complete yet, but I’m open for comments and questions so far. Once it’s a bit more mature, I’ll move it to the Main namespace and find somewhere to link to it in the FOG User Guide or other appropriate locations.
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Just installed FOG using a virtualbox running Ubuntu server (couldn’t see a need for a GUI) and found the process very smooth, steps for me were:
1/ Create fairly minimal machine on virtualbox
2/ Download Ubuntu server iso on host machine, mount in virtual machine, install using all default settings and no optional extras
3/ Download latest FOG .tar.gz from here using wget
(Simpler than messing about with shared folders)
4/ Unzip and execute install script (A, Section 2)
5/ Enjoy watching the very well written script at work
6/ Set virtual machine network adapter to bridged, reboot virtual machine, use ifconfig to check that your real-world dhcp server is providing the virtual machine an ip
7/ Access web interface on host mchine using assigned IP (A, Section 2 again)
8/ At this point I gave my virtual machine a static address (B), and set my (Win 2k8) DHCP server’s option 67 and 66 to allow booting using FOG. (A, Section 3)(A) [url]http://fogproject.org/forum/threads/how-to-install-fog-on-ubuntu.5/[/url]
(B) [url]http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/howto-ubuntu-linux-convert-dhcp-network-configuration-to-static-ip-configuration.html[/url]
[url]http://www.thegeekstuff.com/2009/09/the-ultimate-wget-download-guide-with-15-awesome-examples/[/url] -
Oh, don’t forget to change your IP settings if you do step 8
[url]http://fogproject.org/wiki/index.php?title=Change_FOG_Server_IP_Address[/url]