another init.xz issue

[Sebastian Roth]

@bmaster001 Great you posted the BIOS settings pictures. Try disabling the TPM Support completely!

[george1421]

@bmaster001 After you follow Sebastian’s request to disable TPM all together, if it still is having trouble booting…

I want you to try something. This is a bit self serving, but I’ve been working on a PXE less boot for the FOS engine (the software that runs on the target system that captures and deploys images). If you are willing to try, I would like you to build one and try to boot this device using a USB drive. If it doesn’t boot FOS then you are out of luck.

I will send you a link to the image via IM. Of course I would be skeptical about some chap from the internet telling me to download and run something so the instructions for building it yourself are here: https://forums.fogproject.org/topic/7727/building-usb-booting-fos-image

You can write the fos-usb.img file to usb using dd in linux or Win32DiskImager from sourceforge https://sourceforge.net/projects/win32diskimager The image creation tool need to be run with “Run as Administrator” to have access to write the image to USB. You need a small USB for this 256MB or larger will work. The last thing you need to do is edit the file in \boot\grub\grub.cfg on the flash drive with Windows Write or better notepad++ (not MS notepad) and change the very first line so the ip address points to YOUR fog server.

Now insert this usb into this target computer and boot from it. At the grub menu pick the very last item to launch the debug kernel. After a few seconds you should see some text, press enter twice and you should be at a command prompt. If you get here, then we can run some debug commands.

[bmaster001]

Disabling TPM does not change anything.

Then, I tried your image. I see “loading the kernel”, “loading the virtual hard drive” and “booting the kernel…”. Then it halts. The TPM setting in the bios doesn’t change anything.

I guess this is bad news… ?

EDIT: When I disable “uefi boot” in the bios, I get more text, but it hangs again before I get a prompt (see screenshot below)
EDIT2: After a few hours of searching, I found a driverset of the VM3 device. It seems that the NIC used here is some sort of USB network device. The readme.txt mentions LAN95XX. Don’t know if that might help debugging this? I tried booting with a ipxe.iso that I created on rom-o-matic.eu, with all network drivers, but it can’t find any NIC. So I guess this driver isn’t included (yet)…

[Quazz]

@bmaster001 You need to add a kernel argument to this host. I believe it’s hasusbnic=1

[Wayne Workman]

@Quazz It’s has_usb_nic=1

Article about it:
https://wiki.fogproject.org/wiki/index.php?title=USB_NIC_(usb_network_adapter)

[Tom Elliott]

And it appears this is using a raid controller? Maybe change the BIOS hdd controller to AHCI or IDE, or set mdraid=true to the hosts kernel arguments.

[bmaster001]

No idea if it’s using a raid controller. There’s no option like that in the bios anyway…
I tried “has_usb_nic=1 mdraid=true” in the kernel arguments field for the host, but it keeps hanging on “init.xz…ok” when I create a capture-task for it.

Correction… I found the AHCI/IDE option. Will try that as well…

[Quazz]

I actually took the time to look through the spec sheet this time, seems like the Ethernet port is located on the dock you plug the device in.

I don’t think that makes it a USB NIC, not sure how much support there is for such docks to be honest.

[george1421]

@bmaster001 said in another init.xz issue:

No idea if it’s using a raid controller. There’s no option like that in the bios anyway…
I tried “has_usb_nic=1 mdraid=true” in the kernel arguments field for the host, but it keeps hanging on “init.xz…ok” when I create a capture-task for it.

Just for clarity, if you are booing with the FOS USB stick, you need to update the image args in the /boot/grub/grub.cfg file. The FOG server is not part of the booting process at this level.

[bmaster001]

@Quazz said in another init.xz issue:

I actually took the time to look through the spec sheet this time, seems like the Ethernet port is located on the dock you plug the device in.

I don’t think that makes it a USB NIC, not sure how much support there is for such docks to be honest.

Of course that doesn’t make it a USB NIC, but if the readme file that comes with the drivers say that it’s a USB NIC, then I tend to believe that The device itself doesn’t have any connections, so I assume that the dock is a “close extension” of the device, and we can see it as one.

[bmaster001]

@george1421 said in another init.xz issue:

Just for clarity, if you are booing with the FOS USB stick, you need to update the image args in the /boot/grub/grub.cfg file. The FOG server is not part of the booting process at this level.

Just for clarity too: I put “has_usb_nic=1 mdraid=true” at the end of the line "linux $myimage loglevel=7 … " near the bottom of the file?

[bmaster001]

Two updates:

• Switching between AHCI and IDE in the bios doesn’t make any difference when I try the capture task.
• This device is starting to annoy me. The usb connector on top doesn’t seem to work anymore now (usb keyboard nor usb stick are recognised). The only other usb connection still works but then I have to choose between USB stick and USB keyboard This thing also has a built-in ups so removing the power to really reset it, is not so easy: I have to remove a couple of screws to reach a reset-button. Ugh. I think I’m gonna leave it disconnected from the power during the night, and retry tomorrow morning.

Thanks again for the help guys, I’ll get back tomorrow with the results of the FOS usb stick… I hope.

[george1421]

@bmaster001 said in another init.xz issue:

@george1421 said in another init.xz issue:

Just for clarity, if you are booing with the FOS USB stick, you need to update the image args in the /boot/grub/grub.cfg file. The FOG server is not part of the booting process at this level.

Just for clarity too: I put “has_usb_nic=1 mdraid=true” at the end of the line "linux $myimage loglevel=7 … " near the bottom of the file?

Sorry I should have been a bit more descriptive, I knew exactly what I was talking about.

When you boot off the USB stick using the image I sent you. The booting kernel only looks at that usb drive for settings. So adding things into the fog console like mdraid=true will not make into the booting image. You need to update the /boot/grub/grub.cfg file and add those parameters into the capture deploy line.

Such as in this example.

menuentry "1. FOG Image Deploy/Capture" {
 echo loading the kernel
 linux  $myimage loglevel=$myloglevel initrd=init.xz root=/dev/ram0 rw ramdisk_size=127000 keymap= web=$myfogip/fog/ boottype=usb consoleblank=0 rootfstype=ext4 has_usb_nic=1 mdraid=true 
 echo loading the virtual hard drive
 initrd $myinits
 echo booting kernel...
}

[Sebastian Roth]

@bmaster001 Thanks for posting the picture. The messages about raid6 might seem strange on first sight but are actually quite normal. See here or various other dmesg outputs on pastebin…

Hanging right after some ACPI messages is what I find interesting. Maybe try kernel parameters to turn of ACPI altogether to see if it makes any difference. See here for a list of all the different kernel parameters. I’d start by trying acpi=off…

[george1421]

@bmaster001 said

Just for clarity too: I put “has_usb_nic=1 mdraid=true” at the end of the line "linux $myimage loglevel=7 … " near the bottom of the file?

Now that I look at this a second time, the answer is yes. The last menu entry is debug, so add these in that line. But I would try Sebastian’s suggestion of acpi=off first since that is where the process seems to stop. Once you can get into debug mode then you can add the settings that work to the menu entry 1 for capture / deploy.

[bmaster001]

Finally, some progress!
When I disable UEFI Boot in the bios, and add ACPI=OFF to the kernel parameters, it boots from the FOS stick!

So what’s next now? I use this method to capture/deploy this type of device? Or are there other steps we can take to make if network-boot?

Update: When I choose the “FOG Image Deploy/Captyre” GRUB entry (to which I added the ACPI=OFF parameter too), then it halts with error “fatal error: unknown request type :: Null” (with or without a tastk scheduled for this host). The “Quick Registration” entry as well. “Client System Information” seems to work fine.

[george1421]

@bmaster001 Hey that’s great. I didn’t have high expectations because of the class of computer it is. Yes you need to schedule a capture task on the fog server then boot the FOS client. We need to clean up the FOS client a bit and of someone forget to schedule a capture/deploy before booting FOS to have FOS wait. But that’s another issue.

Now to the other issue. If you are using FOG r8050 or newer you should not get the type-null error as long as you schedule the task first in FOG and then boot the FOS client. The capture deploy step is the only action that requires a job to be scheduled on the fog server first. Your OP stated you are on 8099. Is that still accurate?

[Tom Elliott]

@bmaster001 I don’t know what the value looks like that you’re selecting (as you’re using the FOGS-L USB System), but from the sounds of things you’re in the “debug” console? If that is the case, when you type fog the init you’re host is currently booted into has no understanding of the parameters the normal PXE boot would hand out. Do make it recognize things, you need to (still) schedule a tasking on the FOG GUI for that host.

All you should need to do is schedule the tasking on the GUI and then type the command fog as you had before. The script will then attempt to make a request to the fog server to setup the parameters needed for that tasking.

[george1421]

@Tom-Elliott FWIW, on the grub menu there is the capture/deploy that should not give him debug mode. The very last menu entry in the grub menu IS debug. From what the OP describes (with the type–null) that task was not scheduled / ready for that specific host when FOS was booted (or something is going sideways with hostinfo.php).

[bmaster001]

I first tried the last menu entry, which is the debug mode. That’s when I wrote my previous “yes, progress!” post. Then I did schedule a capture task on the server, booted the host, selected the first menu item (capture/deploy), and then it gave me the “type null” error. At that point I added the update to my previous post.

@george1421 As far as I remember, I didn’t downgrade the fog server… but I’ll make sure to check that on monday!

I can’t test anything until after the weekend (I’m already home and don’t have access to this device of course), but if you guys can think of more things to try on monday, just let me know! Always happy to test things with this weird piece of hardware… and hopefully it can help someone with the same issues in the future!