FOG on VirtualMachine - IMAGES on real harddisk
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Hello everyone,
I currently have a Debian system running a VirtualBox.
In this VirtualBox I installed FOG on a virtual machine.
I wanted to have a separation between the FOG system and the IMAGES. So I use a second hard drive, which is mounted as a virtual hard drive in the FOG system and on which I save the IMAGES.
Somehow I have a bad feeling when I think about saving the IMAGES on a virtual drive.
Instead, I think about how I can save the IMAGES on a real hard drive?Do you have any suggestions?
What could work?Any ideas are welcome.
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@lakk Understand this is just my intuition speaking here, but I have a bigger concern about running FOG on virtual box over storing images on a virtual drive.
Virtual Box (VB) is good in a development environment, but not so good for a production environment. Will it work, YES. Is there better solutions out there? YES.
On my campus we are all virtualized both compute and storage with zero problems. I can tell you the way you set it up with 2 virtual dirves (1 for OS and 1 for images) is the best choice so that if you happen to fill up the /images partition you won’t take down the FOG OS.
If you want to continue with your setup, I’ve heard of people using a NAS as a FOG storage node where no actual files are stored on the FOG server. All you need is a NAS that support FTP and NFS, like synology or readynas.
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Hello George1421,
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1.) NAS as FOG node
This is a good option. -
2.) FOG on VB (virtual box)
I’ve pondered your suggestion that there are better ways to run FOG than on a virtual machine.
And I suspect that I will set up FOG on a real computer with two hard drives (FOG, IMAGES) in the future. -
3.) Fog as a backup
I use FOG to do backups and not store pictures on computers.
I am missing some tools that would help me with this.
For example, to make backups of a group of computers.
If I want to back up multiple computers, I have to set it up separately for each computer.
Am I missing something here?
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@lakk FOG is not really a backup solution. If you want a free backup solution you might look at Veeam Backup agent. This software you can do bare metal recovery of systems as well as individual file restore. With a FOG solution it is only a bare metal backup (all or nothing). You can surely use FOG to backup your computers, I just think the Veeam solution is a bit nicer.
I think FOG running on bare metal (not virtualized) is also a good solution for what you want to do.
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bare metal: yes, this implies a better feeling.
i am quite happy with the backup function (whole disk) of FOG and FOG generally.
the only thing that i am missing are tools to make the creation of backups easier.
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@lakk OK lets run with that idea then. FOG as a backup solution.
In fog you can set a default image for each machine. In your case you will need to create an image definition one per computer. Each computer will have its own fog image defined.
On the restore side, you can configure the iPXE menu “Deploy Image” to show all images on the FOG server or “Only” the images assigned to the target computer. You will want the only assigned to that computer image displayed.
Now on the capture side, its a bit more difficult but not impossible. If you wanted this to happen in an automated way, you can create a scheduled task on the FOG server in (cron) that will create a capture task on some interval. Once that task is created the next time the computer is pxe booted it will capture the target computer to the defined image for that computer in an unattended manner. You will need the FOG Client installed on the target computer to pull this off in an unattended manner. With the capture task scheduled, the next time the FOG client checks in it will see the capture task and reboot. If you have the default boot method to PXE then FOG will capture the image and then reboot the target computer. This time since the capture task has completed it will just boot to the local hard drive.
I still think the Veeam solution is a bit more elegant, but what I posted above should work. You will need a little linux skills to pull it off, but its possible.
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Hi,
i have FOG 1.5.0 running on an ESX Host and a Storage Node on a bare metal machine.
Works like a charm since years.Best Regards X23
