FOG Boot Process

[Wayne Workman]

@utopia Included.

[Sebastian Roth]

@Wayne-Workman Good that you are picking this up. I thought about that as well (as I have started to work on the wiki docu) but kept putting it off.

You are naming the iPXE binary ROM (like in “Next-server sends the boot rom”) which I think can be confusing to people who don’t know much about that yet. I’d really only use the term ROM when talking about the “PXE ROM” aka the NIC firmware (burned in flash ROM) that does the initial DHCP request and (chain)loads the PXE binary. What you called ROM I’d call “(PXE) boot file” or “PXE binary”.

The point “System reads this script from the web server and then downloads the specified kernel and init via HTTP” is not telling the whole truths. At this point quiet often the FOG menu is displayed to the user. If boot from HD is selected there is no linux kernel involved. So I think we need to have a very good description of exactly this point where a lot of things can go wrong (exit type setting, screwed ipxe config generated by the PHP script, missing/wrong kernel or kernel/initrd combination, missing kernel drivers and what not) and people should be able to figure out which part it is.

I am wondering where to put this in the wiki or if we have a similar article already. This one is kind of along what you want to write down: https://wiki.fogproject.org/wiki/index.php?title=PXE
But I really think this is not a good title for this article (and neither it is a good title for what is written there at the moment - initrd stuff…). What about “Client boot”, “Client boot process”, “Client netboot” or “Netbooting the clients”?

Edit: Hmmm, it would actually fit into our series of “Troubleshoot_XXX” articles. Maybe “Troubleshoot_Netboot” (there already is “Troubleshoot_Uploading” I found - which we might include then…)

[Sebastian Roth]

Just found this as well: https://wiki.fogproject.org/wiki/index.php?title=Booting_into_FOG_and_Uploading_your_first_Image

[Wayne Workman]

@Sebastian-Roth I revised the OP based on your suggestions (thank you). Can you look it over?

Also - I agree on making it upload-specific.

Uploads are what people stumble on when they are new to FOG, it’s best we fully document every step of the upload process.

[Sebastian Roth]

@Wayne-Workman Have you had time to look through the wiki articles? Should we start based on one of those? Which wiki article/URL should we choose? Let me know when you are into it again. I guess it would be good to discuss in a chat session again.

[Wayne Workman]

@Sebastian-Roth The earlier one is very, very dated. Good material but a good deal of what Jeff was talking about back then (2009), a lot of that stuff is automated, and there are newer better ways to make changes - even integrated ways.

I say we fix up this article, update it and expand it:
https://wiki.fogproject.org/wiki/index.php?title=Booting_into_FOG_and_Uploading_your_first_Image

[Sebastian Roth]

Has it really been a month since we were talking about this? I finally started to work on the mentioned article. I am sure this will be work in progress as we see issues in the forums…

[Wayne Workman]

@Sebastian-Roth What article are you working on?

[Sebastian Roth]

@Wayne-Workman See in the footer of my messages…

[Wayne Workman]

@Sebastian-Roth I looked it over and made typo corrections and added links and things.

There is quite the gap between full-registration and creating an image though… need to put kernel steps in there I think, and how to change the kernel.

Also - just how detailed do we want to get? I’d really like to be very, very detailed about this - and point out in a well-edited video (I can do that) where each and every little bitty thing happens.

[Sebastian Roth]

@Wayne-Workman said in FOG Boot Process:

Also - just how detailed do we want to get? I’d really like to be very, very detailed about this

Absolutely! I just started to work on this. Long way still to go…