Host registration error.

[erasp21]

@george1421
I would like to check one firmware of the system to see if there is anything about MAC address passthrough.

What steps do you need to take?

I will disclose what I can cooperate with and necessary information.

[erasp21]

@sebastian-roth
Sebastian Roth-san
Thank you for your reply.
Please wait for a while as we will have the opportunity to touch the verification machine next week.

Certainly I confirmed the two MAC addresses.

1. MAC address confirmed by fogserver’s iPXE.
2. USB-The MAC address that your wired LAN device may have.

The MAC address confirmed by iPXE of fogserver was manually corrected on the web-UI of fogserver, and the image was uploaded and deployed.

I’m more interested in this issue and want to know why there are two MAC addresses.

[george1421]

@erasp21 I’m sorry I can not help with this since we do not use hp on our campus. So I can’t give you step by step instructions.

I would look through the firmware settings to see if there is any settings that talk about mac pass through.

[erasp21]

@george1421 said in Host registration error.:

I’m sorry I can not help with this since we do not use hp on our campus. So I can’t give you step by step instructions.
I would look through the firmware settings to see if there is any settings that talk about mac pass through.

Thank you for your answer.

Please let me know if there is anything I can confirm.

If you know the procedure, I can cooperate.

[george1421]

@erasp21 As I mentioned in my previous post I don’t use HP so I can’t give you a step by step.

A quick google-fu search finds this
“From the BIOS setup, under Main, click System Information. Then click the link at the top, “Show Advanced System Information.” Then scroll all the way down and under the COMMUNICATION header you will see Integrated MAC Address 1.”

Read the built in mac address from the above link.

Compare this to the mac address the FOG hardware registration/inventory collects.

ref: https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Desktops-Archive-Read-Only/MAC-Address/td-p/5719257

Then in the bios Advanced menu there is a sub menu for MAC Address Pass Through, what are the setting there? What happens if you change the settings from their default values and try to image again?

ref: http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c06691369

There has to be a reason why iPXE is seeing a different mac address than FOG and Windows.

[erasp21]

@george1421

I checked the BIOS notation on the HP 830 G7.

Advanced --MAC Address Pass Thruough
The MAC address was written here.

There were three options for Host Based MAC Address.
“Disable”
“System Address”
“Custom Address”

The MAC address registered for the first time in FogServer this time recognizes the MAC address of the NIC of USB Type-c, and after being registered as Host in FogServer, the MAC address used for Uploading and Deploying Image is HP 830 G7 Pass. It turned out to be a Thruough MAC address.

The problem this time is that when registering a new Host in Fog Server, the MAC address of the USB Type-c NIC is registered instead of the MAC address of the MAC Address Pass Thruough that the PC has.

Is it possible to solve the problem by changing the FogServer settings in order to register the Host Based MAC Address of the PC?

[george1421]

@erasp21 said in Host registration error.:

There were three options for Host Based MAC Address.

So what was the default setting for this value?

[erasp21]

@george1421

The default setting was “System Address”.

[erasp21]

@george1421

Hello.

In the BIOS settings of the PC
Advanced --MAC Address Pass Thruough
“System Address” (default)
I feel that the problem is that FogServer reads the USB Type-C NIC MAC Address when trying to register the Host.

How can I make FogServer read only the MAC Address that my PC has?

[Sebastian Roth]

@erasp21 said in Host registration error.:

I feel that the problem is that FogServer reads the USB Type-C NIC MAC Address when trying to register the Host.

This is something deep down in how firmware (UEFI), NIC adapter and probably the OS driver handle things. It’s not something we can change in FOG. Well there might be special driver options you could set via /proc in FOS but I really doubt you can change that behavior of which MAC is seen.

[Jpolk91]

@george1421 it looks like you hit the nail on the head here. I’m having this same issue with a hp 1040 g7. After disabling MAC passthrough in BIOS I was able to capture an image! Deploying is similar, disabling mac passthrough and everything is good!

[george1421]

@jpolk91 said in Host registration error.:

disabling mac passthrough and everything is good

Just to help me and the OP of the thread. Disabling mac pass through and imaging a second computer. Does FOG see that second computer’s mac address as already registered. Or you have to register the second computer with FOG, which gets a different mac address.

Since I don’t have HP on my campus we need to fully understand this feature because I’ve seen an uptick in posts regarding this issue.

[Jpolk91]

@george1421 sure.

With MAC pass through disabled FOG registers the MAC of the adapter, so if you use a different adapter for the computer receiving the image it will need to be registered. If you use the same adapter as the computer that uploaded the image it will not.

However, even if you use the same adapter to deploy as you did to upload it seems MAC pass through needs to be disabled on the receiving machine as well or it will error out before deploying. This could be wrong though, I haven’t thoroughly tested it, just tried it on one machine one time.

Let me know if you want me to try anything. I should have one or two of these machines for a little while yet.

[erasp21]

@jpolk91 @george1421
Hello, everybody.
I have 5 HP 830 G7 kitchens.
Therefore, please let us know if you would like us to try something.

[erasp21]

@erasp21 said in Host registration error.:

@jpolk91 @george1421
Hello, everybody.
I have 5 HP 830 G7 kitchens.
Therefore, please let us know if you would like us to try something.

My hope is to use the MAC address that Laptop originally has with MAC pass through enabled.

[erasp21]

@jpolk91 @george1421
Hello, everybody.

In the BIOS settings of the PC
Advanced–MAC address passthrough
“System address” (default)

How about giving FogServer a little image gift by recognizing only the MAC address that the PC has?

[Sebastian Roth]

@erasp21 said in Host registration error.:

How about giving FogServer a little image gift by recognizing only the MAC address that the PC has?

Not sure what you mean by “image gift” but what you seem to ask is not in the FOG servers hand. Depending on the firmware settings and maybe also drivers (iPXE using different ones than FOS Linux and different to Windows) the MAC address seen by the FOG server is whatever is presented by firmware/settings/driver. Not much we can do about it.

[jlnwntr]

I have the same problem. I enabled passthrough and FOG still gets the external MAC (from the docking-station) .

The interesting thing is that FOG reads the corrects MAC while doing this network stuff, seconds before that white main menu. I can read the correct MAC there!!

But when I try the full registration from the menu, FOG compares the other MAC.
This is weird.

[rodluz]

I know this thread is old, but I am adding onto it with my research and findings.

My experience with this issue is only with HP computers, so no idea how other manufacturers do this.
HP’s firmware is written in a way that MAC address passthrough only works using HP thunderbolt docks, on Windows, using the correct dock drivers. MAC address passthrough also does not work with USB-C to Ethernet adapters because the adapters are not thunderbolt. Given this information, FOS out of the box would not be able to access the MAC address passthrough.
Judging by the Linux kernel patches I have seen online, adding this support to FOS would be pretty difficult since it seems like it depends on the network controller of each dock. This means that each dock needs to be programmed into the kernel and changes to that network controller driver need to be made as well.

The other part of the issue is that iPXE gets the MAC address of the device in a different way than FOS. In my experience, iPXE gets the system MAC address (the same address that should get passthrough), while FOS gets the address that Linux gives through the ip addr command.
I have read other threads where iPXE gives a different MAC address, but it wasn’t HP so I can’t check on that.

I have a workaround that I did for HP computers which I have been testing for a couple weeks. The workaround is working for me, but I would rather do some more testing before putting out a tutorial.

[mbuteyn]

Two years later and I just ran into this on a Dell Latitude 5330 with a Dell USB-C to Ethernet adapter.

Here’s my summary,

Using the latest bzimage, FOG was able to use the registered the passthrough MAC that is baked into the BIOS.

Image capture and deploy went fine, but everything FOG related in Windows reported that the client wasn’t registered. Because I didn’t check for a driver for the USB-C to Ethernet adapter, windows used the generic Microsoft driver for the adapter and FOG (and all of windows) sees the USB-C to Ethernet adapter’s MAC address.

As soon as I installed an up to date Realtek driver, Windows started using the BIOS passthrough MAC and everything works as normal.