FOG 1.5.0 RC9 - How to have a computer boot stright to multicase session?

[george1421]

@cheisler8504 said in FOG 1.5.0 RC9 - How to have a computer boot stright to multicase session?:

I did not know it would be that easy to create a menu item that easily.

There is a little bit more that is required, but if you go into the fog configuration and then into the ipxe menu configuration you can create new iPXE boot menu entries. The one I provided should be pretty close to what you needed.

[cheisler8504]

@george1421

See all of these laptops are EXACTLY the same. They actually are dog slow Core2Duo laptops that I got for nothing (120x @ $5ea.) So i’m my limit is actually table space and the extra 16port gigabit switch I had. So, I can do about 15 at a time.

The goal is to hook them up and let them go to town so that I can spend time with my family instead of fiddling around with the laptops. Though, the fam has been helping me with setting all the bios settings.

[Sebastian Roth]

@cheisler8504 said:

The goal is to hook them up and let them go to town so that I can spend time with my family instead of fiddling around with the laptops. Though, the fam has been helping me with setting all the bios settings.

Nice! This is exactly what multicast is for, sou you’re definitely on the right track with this and I am pretty sure we can make this work together. Though there is still at least one hurdle that comes to my mind. You need to create the multicast session to be able to join the computers to that. FOG is made to create multicast sessions for groups of computers that are registered within FOG. So from here there are two streets you can follow. One going down the general way of how FOG works:

• hook up 15 of those machines to the switch and make sure they all PXE boot
• goto the web UI -> FOG Configuration -> iPXE Menu Configuration -> fog.reg and mark the checkbox “Default Item” -> Save Changes
• Prepare the multicast session: web UI -> Image Management -> Multicast Image (from the menu on the left side) -> Session Name: cast (or whatever you like), the rest should be clear. Make sure you have a proper image selected that has been uploaded and deployed to at least one host before to make sure this is alright!
• go back to FOG Configuration -> iPXE Menu Configuration -> fog.multijoin and change the Parameters to:

params
param mac0 ${net0/mac}
param arch ${arch}
param sessname cast
isset ${net1/mac} && param mac1 ${net1/mac} || goto bootme
isset ${net2/mac} && param mac2 ${net2/mac} || goto bootme

• See that when sessname is set to a fixed value (cast) and login is removed, so it should join the clients into the session without any user interaction.
• After saving the Parameters for fog.multijoin go back to that in the web UI and check the “Default Item” checkbox but don’t click the button to save the changes yet.
• Bootup all 15 machines and watch them do the quick registration (that was selected as default boot) - when all of them got past the FOG menu and do the registration now click save to default to the fog.multijoin menu item for when the machines come up after registering and rebooting
• watch the machines join the multicast session and do the cloning

[Wayne Workman]

@sebastian-roth I would tend to think that since you can set a boot menu item to show only for registered hosts, or only for non-registered hosts, or for all hosts, that there could be multiple default items.

If that were the case, you could have a default item for quick registration that only shows for non-registered hosts, and another for multicast that only shows for registered hosts.

[kennethjnvega]

This post is deleted!

[kennethjnvega]

@wayne-workman said in FOG 1.5.0 RC9 - How to have a computer boot stright to multicase session?:

@cheisler8504 You can probably set the multijoin boot entry to be the default item, and modify the ipxe script for this item to set a valid user/pass. See the picture below.

This is inside of FOG Configuration -> Ipxe menu item settings.

Hello, I have the same request, but I can’t access the picture that you upload, can you please upload it again?

[Tom Elliott]

@kennethjnvega This post if from 2017. I don’t know who typically maintains pictures for quite that long.

Normally the forums would have had this available, but a few months ago there was an issue and we lost the public accessible data. The posts exist, but the pictures do not from that time.

[kennethjnvega]

@tom-elliott Thank you very much for your prompt response, and is there any way to do what is said in the post? Given that, in what we are testing we have around 20 computers to clone, and the idea is to select everything automatically, does this include not having to enter the username and password or the cloning session?

[Tom Elliott]

@kennethjnvega Have you tried the items within this post that aren’t relying on a picture?

Something like from this link:
https://forums.fogproject.org/topic/10868/fog-1-5-0-rc9-how-to-have-a-computer-boot-stright-to-multicase-session/8?_=1615817300537#

[kennethjnvega]

@tom-elliott Thank you very much Tom, from reading so much, I did not notice that answer, this is what I was looking for, I thank you very much for your time.