Deploy Image Every Boot/Reboot

[nerdstburns]

So I currently have my PCs set to boot from the Network first, this way if there are any pending fog tasks they will occur during startup or reboot, otherwise they will continue to the disk. Is there a way to have an image deploy every time the computer boots or restarts?

[george1421]

What are you trying to accomplish here? I can see a boot loop in your request.

Boot computer -> deploy image (at end of imaging there is a reboot) -> boot computer -> deploy image -> rinse and repeat.

What target OS are you intending to do this with?

[nerdstburns]

Good catch, i forgot about the second boot after the deployed image. Is there a way to schedule an image deployment at a specific time everyday? I would like to do this for Windows. I have an image that contains gaming launchers (epic, steam, etc). I would like to wipe the games people download and redeploy that clean image everyday without having to manually schedule it each time.

[george1421]

@nerdstburns So do you want to do this without human interaction? It would be possible with a one click install.

You could set it up to every time you enter the fog ipxe menu it defaults to image. It would take a fog tech to enter the boot manager menu on the target computer and pick pxe boot. From there it could be touchless.

[Sebastian Roth]

@nerdstburns Or you can setup a CRON style scheduled deploy in FOG if you like.

[nerdstburns]

@Sebastian-Roth by setting up CRON style scheduled deploy in Fog would that do it daily at the same time everyday. Or at least initiate the task at the same time everyday. I assume it wouldn’t deploy until the computers are turned on or restarted past that time?

[george1421]

@nerdstburns said in Deploy Image Every Boot/Reboot:

it wouldn’t deploy until the computers are turned on or restarted past that time

CRON style imaging is an option. While I don’t use the FOG Client in my environment, but I believe if the fog client is installed on the target computer and it finds an imaging task it will reboot the target computer automatically to start imaging. That is regardless of its a cron imaging task to not.

For the cron style imaging I believe that is a oneshot deployment. But once you have the job scheduled you can go into the cron and make the job repetitive at a certain time every day. Then CRON will submit the job to the FOG Tasker to deploy the image.

Personally I’ve always been hesitant to setup an auto and uncontrolled imaging task, but if it fits your needs you can do this path too.

[Sebastian Roth]

@nerdstburns If the host is turned off and wake on LAN (WOL) works in your environment, then it will just be started automatically and do the image deployment. You can have it reboot after the task (default) or let it do a shutdown via adding shutdown=1 as Kernel parameter (general FOG settings or individual host settings).

When you use the FOG web UI to schedule a normal deployment task you see the selection:

• Schedule instant (default selection)
• Schedule delayed (one shot at a certain time)
• Schedule cron-style (repeating task as often as you like it to happen, once a day or every other hour or whatever)