Making a fog image is not working for me, please help me
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Hi I’m using Fog for many years now but I never build my own images until now. Before my ex colleague did it but he left the company so I started myself doing everything at home learning myself. I made my own fog server on a Linux Centos 8, my dhcp is ready, PXE is configured in my dhcp so booting to fog is also not my problem. My problem is making the image right.
I found this tutorial: https://www.ceos3c.com/open-source/create-generalized-windows-10-image-deploy-fog-server/ and I followed it. Even my unattended file with not to much options was pretty easy I guess. Yesterday I tried I guess for the 50th time or so to capture an image and after that deploy it to a Dell laptop (Latitude 5420). Running my fog server on Esxi version 7.0.3. The capture succeeded and at first side also the deploy. But when Windows starts I get this error: \windows\system32\winload.efi. I had days I wasn’t able to capture an image, I had days after deploying that the image was still in sysprep mode. I had so many problems and I’m really sad. I don’t understand the problem anymore. Why isn’t it working? Can someone assist me somehow? -
@Pingolin It’s very hard to help with “many problems” but not enough details to know what really went wrong.
Let’s start by asking what FOG version you use?
Also I may suggest one basic thing to try out and see if that’s of help to you. Many people use the resizable image type just because it’s the default when you create a new image in the FOG web UI. Please try out non-resizable image type and see if that causes less problems. You only need resizable if you capture and deploy from/to different size disk.
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@sebastian-roth Hi, I’m on the latest version = 1.5.9. Let me try to create a new image to capture this time I will take: Multiple Partition Image - Single Disk (not resizable). is that OK. But yes I capture and deploy to different size disk but maybe this works. I will post later on.
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@sebastian-roth another problem that occurs a lot. After starting the sysprep, the VM shuts down when complete. Then I need to start it up again to register my VM I prepared and then the IPX boot: Start PXE over IPv4 is not working. It always returns to the boot menu. I need EFI, can’t use BIOS anymore for the recent laptops I need to deploy so suggesting to put the bios in Legacy mode will not work for me I guess unless you have a solution to that.
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@pingolin One (ok two things) thing you need to know is that your source image needs to be the same firmware type as your target computer. So if your target computer is uefi, then on your golden image, you need to make sure the VM is configured for UEFI before you install windows. So the rule is Capture (UEFI) -> Deploy (UEFI).
The second part is that if you are pxe booting a uefi computer, then your dhcp option 67 needs to be ipxe.efi if you are not using FOG as your dhcp server. If you try to pxe boot the bios boot loader undionly.kpxe the uefi boot manager will just return you to the boot manager when it tries to boot the file.
And one freebee bit of info. Make sure on your target computer you have turned off secure boot. FOG is not compatible with secure boot enabled.
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@george1421 sorry for the delay. So yes capture and deploy are both Uefi. I’m aware of that.
For the second part: I’m using the DHCP server of Windows server 2016. I have defined legacy boot and uefi boot in my DHCP so could that be the reason that VM’s are not booting well? Should I kick out Legacy boot? It’s not used anymore so that could be an option I didn’t try yet.
Thanks also for the freebee but I’m already aware that Secure boot is not working well for Fog. I always turn it of.
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@Pingolin What issue are we aiming to fix here at the moment I am still wondering.
I have defined legacy boot and uefi boot in my DHCP so could that be the reason that VM’s are not booting well? Should I kick out Legacy boot?
That should not cause any of the problems you describe in your initial post. Sure you can remove legacy PXE boot if you don’t need it anymore but this won’t fix your problems I am sure.
The capture succeeded and at first side also the deploy. But when Windows starts I get this error: \windows\system32\winload.efi. I had days I wasn’t able to capture an image, I had days after deploying that the image was still in sysprep mode.
This is very strange because FOG is pretty rock solid when it comes to cloning stuff from A to B repetitively. There is no reason the outcome is different when doing the exact same thing again.
On the other hand FOG doesn’t really care on what your OS looks like. It does no magic to it or it’s boot loader. Sure it does fiddle with your partition tables and that can cause a problem. But beyond that FOG just blindly copies from A to B not caring about the contents.
When it did not capture properly, did you take a picture of the error or note down the error message? We really need more details to be able to help.
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@Sebastian-Roth
OK so I took now Multiple Partition Image - All Disks (Not resizable) and I was able to capture and deploy the image. No Blue screens and also the booting with EFI went smooth. I have to say we put in another faster switch at home. Maybe that helped at home for getting our booting issues out of the loop for now. The switch before was although also a pretty fast switch. Still the annoying thing is: my VM is 40GB big and I will be using the capture of that VM to put it on disks that are bigger. I’m not able to resize the C-drive with the extra free space there is because the recovery partition is between them. For now I solved this by using a portable partition software but is there also a solution for? -
@Pingolin said:
Still the annoying thing is: my VM is 40GB big and I will be using the capture of that VM to put it on disks that are bigger. I’m not able to resize the C-drive with the extra free space there is because the recovery partition is between them. For now I solved this by using a portable partition software but is there also a solution for?
That is exactly what the resizable image type is made for. But some partition layouts are causing problems. Before we get into debugging this issue I ask you to update to the very latest FOS init that might help with whatever issue you have with your partition layout.
Go to a command shell (SSH, …) on your FOG server and run the following commands:
sudo -i cd /var/wwwhtml/fog/service/ipxe mv init.xz init.bak mv init_32.xz init_32.bak wget https://github.com/FOGProject/fos/releases/latest/download/init.xz wget https://github.com/FOGProject/fos/releases/latest/download/init_32.xz chown apache:apache init.xz init_32.xzNow schedule a new capture task and let you VM boot up. Pay close attention to the bootup - there is an ASCII art logo of FOG and just below that you should see
Init version: ..., should be20220203. -
Hi Sebastian,
I finally got it working thanks. Everything is fine now.
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@Pingolin Using the latest FOS inits?
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@Sebastian-Roth actually I didn’t touch anything anymore. It suddenly started to work. Very strange.
