Need help with new FOG server installation and setup (PXE, image creation)
-
Hello everyone,
I would like to ask for some help. We installed our first ever FOG server on Ubuntu Server 22.04 LTS and immediately ran into some problems. We configured our installation without the DHCP option because we already have a DHCP server in our network and we went without HTTPS support. We were able to log into the Web UI and managed to install the FOG client to the test PC which runs Windows 10 Pro. Unfortunately the windows PC can’t PXE boot and we can’t upload our first image. The strange thing is that it can ping the FOG server and the FOG client even tells us that there is a task pending and we need to restart the windows PC. What options did we mess up or what install and setup steps did we miss? Any help would be appreciated. Sorry if there are posts like this already answered. I tried to find one which describes our situation, to no avail.
-
You will need to translate my message.
No meu aconteceu isso, verifica se no seu servidor na opção 66 do DHCP está apontando o endereço ip do seu servidor FOG e se na opção 67 está o arquivo de inicialização pxe (geralmente é o undionly.kpxe ou ipxe.efi).
Após isso veja se dentro do seu servidor fog está instalado algum serviço de TFTP para o cliente conseguir achar os arquivos de inicialização ( eu acessei o fog através de ssh com o software MOBA, e precisei instalar o serviço tftp com o comando “sudo apt-get install tftpd-hpa”, depois “sudo systemctl start tftpd-hpa.service”).
Depois precisei dar permissão para o cliente acessar a pasta com o comando “chmod 777 /tftpboot” (para acessarem o diretorio dos arquivos pxe) e para cada arquivo pxe dei a permissão “chmod 644 /”, exemplo = “chmod 644 /ipxe.efi”.
Depois dei o comando para reiniciar “sudo systemctl restart tftpd-hpa.service”. -
@oz-agoston I agree with Gabriel check your dhcp server(s) (if you have more than one) to ensure dhcp options 66 and 67 are being sent to the target computer. PXE booting will simply not work if these values are not set on your campus dhcp server.
The next questions is if you have a screening router between the subnets (client and fog server) that might be blocking tftp.
If you could supply the actual error message created by the target computer during a pxe boot that would help us identify where to look.
-
Thank you both. I will try to set up the DHCP options correctly today and will give a feedback. Unfortunately there is no error code created by the target computer because it is stuck in a loading loop, likely because it can’t access the data without the above mentioned settings.
-
Unfortunately our bosses wouldn’t want us to use the windows DHCP server for the FOG server to avoid possible network problems. Hence we tried to set up the whole thing in an isolated environment to be able to deploy the images with an unmanaged switch (and maybe use it this way in the future) but we had no luck. After hours of troubleshooting we finally met the last problem, DHCP server no subnet declaration for ensp2s0. We tried everything we could find online to make changes in the config files but we just couldn’t solve it. If there are some further suggestions we would gladly try them.
-
@oz-agoston said in Need help with new FOG server installation and setup (PXE, image creation):
Unfortunately our bosses wouldn’t want us to use the windows DHCP server for the FOG server to avoid possible network problems.
We have solutions you can use where you don’t or can’t update your primary dhcp server. You don’t necessarily need to setup an isolated network. Depending on your deployment your target computers may need access to AD during deployment, where an isolated network might cause a problem.
In cases where you can’t/don’t want to update your primary dhcp server you can install dnsmasq onto your fog server to provide pxe boot information only to the target computers. It takes about 10 minutes to install dnsmasq using this configuration: https://forums.fogproject.org/topic/12796/installing-dnsmasq-on-your-fog-server
Now just be aware that dnsmasq (as well as dhcp) only works on local vlan/subnet because dnsmaq as well as dhcp uses broadcast messaging. So right there dnsmasq pxe boot information will be localized to the current subnet where the fog server is installed. If you want to pxe boot on another subnet where the FOG server is not, you will need to update your network’s router and add the FOG server’s IP address to the list of dhcp servers in the dhcp-helper/dhcp-relay service. This will allow dnsmasq to hear pxe booting from other subnets. One of the many advantages of dnsmasq running on the FOG server is that if the fog server is off-line no pxe boot information will be sent to the network.
