Boot into FOG on iMac 18,1 with Boot Image or boot Partition

RTOadmin

Hi,

I’m a Teacher at a secondary School and habe 86 new 18,1 iMac.
I’m not very experienced in FOG and Linux. I am experienced in Windows Server / client an Mac os X.

Is there a way to boot into Fog with PXE on imacs?

Could there created a boot Partition with a linuxPXE to boot into pxe?

If not, can someone provide me a bootable ISO to boot from CD oder USB into Fog.

I have read some topics in this forum and tried some hours but my abilities on linux are poor.

So If someone could do this job for our school (teamviewer or so), we can pay for this job.

thank you very much for helping.
Kind Regards
Mathias

RTOadmin

@george1421
I saw that the boot stick has a masterboot record and the drive in the imac is GPT.
Could you imagine that this is the Problem why the FOS linux didnt boot?

george1421

@rtoadmin said in Boot into FOG on iMac 18,1 with Boot Image or boot Partition:

After booting i became an error

I don’t have a good answer for you. I don’t know Mac computers so I can’t give any guidance.

I would think that since its a uefi partition the firmware should see it. Maybe the program you used to write the image file to the usb flash drive, could be used to write the image file to this partition? Once you have that setup working you can use FOG to copy just that partition and then deploy that partition to other computers. Understand I have not thought to much about any failures in this process. But it should work, maybe.

RTOadmin

@george1421
Hi,
I tried to get the boot stick on a partiton on every mac.
I made a knew partition FAT32 and copied the whole stuff from the USB-Stick to the FAT Partition.
After booting i became an error
error:no such partition

Is there a way to fix this and boot from this partition?
Thank you
Mathias

RTOadmin

@george1421
Ok,
I looked in the Systemreport in OS X and find out that the iMacs are from 2017.
This means my reseller sold me in 2021 old stuff because of the latest imac 21,5 is form 2019 as I konow

george1421

@rtoadmin Well done on the capture. For my info the system you were able to capture, is that a 2019 or later mac? I’m curious about if the patches to the FOS Linux kernel that supports the T2 chip worked or not. If you captured on an older mac, that is ok. I’m just interested in seeing if FOG should integrate the T2 patches into the official FOG kernel.

RTOadmin

OK,
as always the problem is between the keyboard and the chair

I tried to caputre the wrong Mac…

Now it Captures…

Sorry for making taking so much time.

thank you very much.

george1421

@rtoadmin said in Boot into FOG on iMac 18,1 with Boot Image or boot Partition:

I tried to enter the comands on the target computer but the directory lib is not in the fog directory

This is very strange because its the foundation of the FOG code that runs on FOS Linux. I lifted that code directly from the FOG script. Every fog script has that line in it. https://github.com/FOGProject/fos/blob/fda59eca648af1a38ed57c94f65558221e77534f/Buildroot/board/FOG/FOS/rootfs_overlay/bin/fog.man.reg#L2

I agree if you type that into the FOG server’s linux console that script will not be there, but on the target computer it better be there.

RTOadmin

@george1421 thank you.

I tried to enter the comands on the target computer but the directory lib is not in the fog directory

george1421

@rtoadmin Understand you should be doing this process on the target computer at the FOS Linux command prompt.

The passwd command might complain about password too short, but since you are root (i.e. linux god) if you enter it again it will accept it.

You can use putty from windows computer or ssh from linux/mac computer. The ssh syntax is ssh root@<ipaddress_of_target> It might come back and say something about remembering the certificate of the server, just answer yes. Then it should prompt you for a password you created.

Understand you can also run the commands directly on the FOS Linux (target computer) console. The ssh route would be just easier to copy and paste.

RTOadmin

@george1421 said in Boot into FOG on iMac 18,1 with Boot Image or boot Partition:

. /usr/share/fog/lib/funcs.sh
sysuuid=$(dmidecode -s system-uuid)
sysuuid=${sysuuid,}
mac=$(getMACAddresses)
curl -Lks -o /tmp/hinfo.txt --data “sysuuid=${sysuuid}&mac=$mac” “${web}service/hostinfo.php” -A ‘’

cat /tmp/hinfo.txt

OK, the MAC Adress is the same as in the Backend

Password change on the client to hello was not allowed because it is to weak.
I tried a longer one it works.
I tried to connect form the linux terminal on the same machine where the fog server is running to connect to the client

I used ssh 192.168.1.112

I have to check that there is no fingerprint, done
After entering the password the password did not match. I tried serveral differnt ones.

If I understand right, I have to run the script with ssh on the form the server?
I tried to enter the code on the client did not work because of there is no such directory.

Have you an idea why my password didnt match?

Thank you very much.

george1421

@rtoadmin I have to think something went wrong with the registration or the mac address doesn’t match for some reason. I think this section of the imaging program needs a bit more in the area of detail why its mad, and not just that its mad at you.

If you are willing to help me out debug this I think we can figure it out pretty quickly. For reference the section of programming where this hostinfo.txt message is displaced is here: https://github.com/FOGProject/fos/blob/fda59eca648af1a38ed57c94f65558221e77534f/Buildroot/board/FOG/FOS/rootfs_overlay/bin/fog#L4 Lines 4 to 10. I don’t expect you to read the program, only this is the part we will debug first.

Leave that existing task running on the FOG server.

USB boot that mac, but this time pick (I think) option 8 debug mode. This should send you to the FOS Linux command prompt.

Key in the following command ip a s That will show you a list of network adapters. One of those network adapters will have an IP address that is valid for your network. Associated with that network adapter with the IP address thats valid for your network, there will be a mac address. Make sure that mac address matches the mac address in the Web UI host definition for this computer (my guess is that the mac address of the computer in the web ui will not match the mac address of the target computer). If it does match then we are going to run these commands.

. /usr/share/fog/lib/funcs.sh
sysuuid=$(dmidecode -s system-uuid)
sysuuid=${sysuuid,,}
mac=$(getMACAddresses)
curl -Lks -o /tmp/hinfo.txt --data "sysuuid=${sysuuid}&mac=$mac" "${web}service/hostinfo.php" -A ''

cat /tmp/hinfo.txt

That was a bit more typing than I hoped. I will tell you a short cut to help debug.

We already have the ip address of this debug computer with the ip a s command. Note what that address is
On the target computer, lets give root a password wtth passwd. Make it a simple password like hello the password will be reset on the next reboot.
Finally from another computer with a windowed UI (mac, windows, linux) you can use putty/ssh to connect to the target computer using the IP address useid root, and password hello from before. This ssh terminal will allow you to copy and paste commands to the FOS Linux engine without having to retype everything.

I’m interested in what that hostinfo.txt file is saying. The cat command will print out what is inside that file. I think it will be a warning message.

RTOadmin

Re: [Boot into FOG on iMac 18](1 with Boot Image or boot Partition)

thank you very much.

I registered the client with the fos Linux, created an Image and an image Task.
In the task list the task apears:

If I boot with the provided fos linux and type 1 to capture a image I got the same error as bevor

george1421

@rtoadmin said in Boot into FOG on iMac 18,1 with Boot Image or boot Partition:

and then /tmp/hinfo.txt line 1 invalid command not fond!!!

Fatal Error Unkon request type :: null

Actually this is a good thing. The short answer is its working!!

I’m not sure about the first error, it may be related to the second error. The second error is one of the caveats with this system. You need to schedule a task on the FOG server before you pick option 1. Schedule a capture or deploy task first then pick option 1.

The first error might be caused if you don’t have the computer registered with FOG first. If the computer you are trying to image is not listed in FOG’s inventory then it might throw that error. If that is the case from the Grub menu you need to pick one of the register menu items first, then you can schedule a capture or deploy task.

As far as the booting process you can ignore the acpi warning messages at the top. As long as FOS Linux picks up an IP address you are good to go. You are very close to having this work.

RTOadmin

@george1421 Thank you very much.

I configured the cfg file to my Fog Server 192.168.1.10

The mac booted into the menu and I choosed opion 1 Cature…

then some acpi errors apears.

Starting syslogd, klogd, sysctl OK

Network interface started and discovered the dhcp with the correct ip of the client
adding dns 192.168.1.2 is also ok
startin sshd ok

and then /tmp/hinfo.txt line 1 invalid command not fond!!!
fuseblk bad value for source
xfs unknown parameter nolock

Fatal Error Unkon request type :: null

Compuzterwill reboot

george1421

@rtoadmin

The article that describes what to do is here: https://forums.fogproject.org/topic/7727/building-usb-booting-fos-image/21 The image file below will take you to step seven. You should just need to use a program to burn the image to a 512MB flash drive. You can use larger but FOS linux doesn’t need more than 512MB. My general recommendation would be to use rufus on a windows computer to write the image to a usb drive. But balena etcher should work for you. I just have not personally done this with etcher. (writing raspberry pi images to sd cards I have, just not the fos linux boot image) https://www.balena.io/etcher/

The link to the image file is here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Tq7HAC8F9rO-SI-3FMzKrUPYbXTderC2/view?usp=sharing

RTOadmin

@george1421 Thank you…

george1421

@rtoadmin OK let me build a usb bootable FOS linux image later today. Lets see if those Macs can see that boot image. I’ll include the kernel for the T2 chip too. I’d like to see if it boots on a Mac.

RTOadmin

@rtoadmin said in Boot into FOG on iMac 18,1 with Boot Image or boot Partition:

@george1421 Hi, thank you.

Yes the Macs are Intel based and bootcamp is working. The USB Drive is shown on the boot menu but wont do anything after selecting.

Ok thats curious… I tried it on my imac 20,2 27" bought in January 21 and there is the option available.

RTOadmin

@george1421 Yes, the option to turn off is not shown. Only the option to set a firmware password.

Boot into FOG on iMac 18,1 with Boot Image or boot Partition

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