could not boot: exec format error

rude26

Hello all,

hoping I can get some help here I’m new to fog trying to configure this imaging solution at my new workplace. i have it configured on debian 11 (Maybe my issue?) got DHCP configured on our windows DHCP server. I boot the PC i choose onboard NIC ipv4, I get the Fog menu, I choose to perform full host registration and inventory and i get the errors in the screen shot below.

i did set up wire shark on another machine and all the correct info is coming through
Next server is set up
and bot file is set up - ipxe.efi

im unable to boot to undionly.kpxe

any help would be greatly appreciated.

george1421

@rude26 I have seen this before but I can’t remember the exact case.

Lets get past the first part in that you have the right boot loader because if you try to load ipxe.efi on a bios computer it won’t load. So you have the right bits there.

What I don’t understand is why it did not transfer init.xz before it tried to start bzImage.

Did you create a custom ipxe menu or something?

The error message is basically saying that bzImage is not an executable file. What do you get when (on the FOG server) you run this command file /var/www/html/fog/service/ipxe/bzImage

rude26

@george1421 said in could not boot: exec format error:

file /var/www/html/fog/service/ipxe/bzImag

Thank you for responding! i did not build a custom ipxe menu. and when i run the command you provided i get a “no such file or directory”

george1421

@rude26 OK lets use the debian variant path file /var/www/fog/service/ipxe/bzImage

If that gives us a no such file or directory, lets navigate to that path to see where the path fails.

I’m almost getting the idea you don’t have a complete install, but lets see where the path fails us.

rude26

@george1421 ok! so i got the "no such file or directory
i manually navigated to var/www/fog/service/ipxe/ there is no bzImage
but a there is a few other files. i put up a snip

george1421

@rude26 OK I want you to reinstall fog. Make sure you do all 3 parts.

installfog.sh
Half way through you will be directed to the web gui.
return back to the fog server console and complete the install.

You did find the root of the problem, we just need to understand why.

rude26

@george1421 ok! so im back at work this morning trying to correct this
attempted to reinstall never go the prompt to go to GUI like i did the 1st time around
i attempted to do a full uninstall and reinstall both of the times when attempting to install i noticed this error

cannot get this to download more then likely my issue?

Sebastian Roth

@rude26 Do you have to use a proxy server in your network?

rude26

@sebastian-roth no we are not using a proxy server.

george1421

@rude26 Does your fog server have direct access to the internet? I would think yes if you got this far. But this error is the root of why its not booting.

Can you test to ping fogproject.org ? Maybe something is up with name resolution.

rude26

@george1421 yes it does have direct access, yes I can ping fogproject.org
checked the firewall for any potential blocks. but i did not see anything

Sebastian Roth

@rude26 Then try a manual download to find out what’s going on. On your FOG server run the following command and post output here:

curl -kOL https://github.com/FOGProject/fos/releases/latest/download/bzImage

george1421

@sebastian-roth said in could not boot: exec format error:

https://github.com/FOGProject/fos/releases/latest/download/bzImage

I just reversed engineering this answer…

rude26

@sebastian-roth ok ran that and this is what i got.
is my network denying to connection?

george1421

@rude26 For reference when I run the command from my fog server.

2022-02-07 13_57_09.png

Also when I paste the url into my browser I get a file download prompt. I just wanted to test to see if something was broken with the github site.

rude26

@george1421
when i go to the url with my browser on my windows machine it did download bzimage
when i do it from the fog server it does not download

can i just drop this file in the correct place?

george1421

@rude26 There are actually a series of files that gets downloaded here.

Are you sure your company isn’t using a transparent proxy for internet filtering? HTTP inspect might cause https to fail. See if you can pull the file with http.

Sebastian Roth

@rude26 said in could not boot: exec format error:

can i just drop this file in the correct place?

Yes for the binaries itself but no for the checksums. The script is made to always re-download the checksums to make sure it would pull a newer kernel/init file even if an older one sits there in the tmp folder. I know this is not great for the situation you are in right now.

Are you ok with editing shell scripts? That way we could help you get around this. https://github.com/FOGProject/fogproject/blob/dev-branch/lib/common/functions.sh#L2422

The other option I can suggest is downloading kernel/init binaries and checksums plus the fog-client binaries and host those on a local mirror for the moment. Just put in “github.com” to your /etc/hosts.

rude26

@sebastian-roth so after the last post and seeing it might be my network blocking me or a proxy set up, i decided to do it a nasty way lol please dont hate me. and also i came into a place with alot of missing staff so its been a whole discovery session for me.

I tethered my cell to the machine( on a test machine in the office) for network
was able to download all the files
it assigned it different IP
went through install
and re ran install once hooked back in to the internal network changed IP and DHCP to what it should be
i got success!!! i was able to check in my device with the fog server!!!
you guys are awesome thanks for the help.

now that its checked in and im trying to capture and image im getting this error looking through the forum to see if i can find the answer

george1421

@rude26 This is a YOU problem. What happened is that you used “shutdown” to power off the windows computer. This does not close all of the open windows files because fast startup is turned on.

There are a few ways to shut it down in preparation for cloning.

Let sysprep do it.
Use the command prompt and use shutdown -s -t 0
Turn off fast startup.

For more information google windows dirty bit

Well done on the internet bypass to get FOG installed.

could not boot: exec format error

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