Dell 3040

[george1421]

@JMacavali We if you pxe boot and then select the PXE menu option for compatibility. It would be interesting to see what fails using the newest kernels. But enjoy your holiday and come back to the thread when you are well rested.

[JMacavali]

Hi again. I’m back and ready to try this all again.

Here’s where I’m at:

I’m working on 2 different computer types (which I know isn’t a good thing but they are having similar problems).

Dell Latitude 3450:
Using the newest kernal - 4.6.2 and it starts to go through fog, but when it gets to the part where it would actually image, it just gives me a black screen with a cursor blinking at the bottom. This also happens using 4.5.3. However, the computer does register with fog.

Dell Optiplex 3040:
Using the newest kernel - 4.6.2 and it won’t even register the host with fog. Says ‘host unable to register for the following reasons’ and then just goes to a black screen with nothing else (doesn’t list any reasons). Same thing happens on 4.5.3.

I’ve tried other kernel versions as well and none of them seemed to matter. At this point, I don’t know what to do. If anyone has a suggestion, I’m all ears. Thanks for your help so far with all of this!

[JMacavali]

I did the Compatibility test:

Dell 3450 - Network - Fail / Disk - Pass

Dell 3040 - Network - Fail / Disk - Pass

Both computers showed the 4.6.2 kernel that I downloaded when they started the compatibility test.

[george1421]

@JMacavali This is just a wild guess. Can you place a dumb (unmanaged) switch between these devices and the building network switch, then try the compatibility test again?

We have see issues where spanning tree is enabled on the building switch, but none of the fast STP modes are enabled (port fast, RSTP, etc). The default spanning tree time to forward is 27 seconds. This means that the port will not forward traffic for 27 seconds after the link light comes on. During the FOG booting process the link light winks 3 times, and since the FOS engine (the OS that captures and deploys images) is so fast, it has already given up by the time the switch port starts forwarding data. I’m not saying this is the case but the quick test is to just put a dumb switch between the target and the building switch to see if you get different results.

[JMacavali]

The fog server and the devices are located on the same dumb switch. The dumb switch is connected to the network drop in my office (which comes from the core switches).

Thank you for offering the advice but that doesn’t seem to be the problem here.

Just to confirm I’ve unhooked everything and tried a different dumb switch. Still says network test failed.

[george1421]

@JMacavali Ok that was the easy test.

The next step is to schedule a debug deploy (don’t worry we are not going to deploy anything). You will need to manually register the device, then setup a deploy job. Don’t forget to check the debug option on the deploy task. Then pxe boot the target. It should load the FOS engine and require you to press enter at the wall of text a few times. But in the end it should drop you to a command prompt.

At the command prompt key in and post here

1. ip addr show Make sure the link light is on the target computer
2. lspci -m this will spew a bunch of text but it contains the necessary info to identify the hardware in that computer.

Lastly if you have one of these target computers booting into windows, it would be interesting to know the vendor and hardware ids for this NIC. These NICs should be supported by the FOS engine (linux kernel). We just need to verify which bits are falling down.

[JMacavali]

I’ll work on all this and post back tomorrow with results. Thanks again for all this help.

[jburleson]

@JMacavali I can confirm that the Dell Optiplex 3040 works with the latest kernel 4.6.2. Here is my server info:

OS: Ubuntu 16.04
Fog:
Running Version 8515
SVN Revision: 5882

I was able to inventory, register, and deploy an image using uefi boot (secure boot disabled). However, after the it finished deploying the image and rebooted it got stuck in a boot loop. Switching EFI Exit types did not have an impact either. Changing back to legacy boot did fix the issue.

I did also try updating the 3040 bios to the latest version available on the Dell site but it did not change the uefi booting issue.

My recommendation is to disable secure boot and switch to legacy boot. If you do that then it should work fine. I have imaged 3 OP3040s with these settings.

[JMacavali]

[kusan]

Try to image your device with below given steps:
Log on to Windows as an administrator
Open Dell Backup and Recovery by clicking Start, pointing to All programs and clicking Dell Backup and Recovery
Click Restore System
In the Restore System window, select the backup file you want to use to restore your system in the drop-down menu and click Next
In the Confirm window, read the caution message and click both check boxes to confirm that you want to overwrite your computer’s operating system with the selected backup file, and that the restore process cannot be interrupted or undone
Click Start. Your computer will restart into the Windows Recovery Environment. Dell Backup and Recovery will first erase your operating system partition and then install the selected backup
When the process completes a success message appears. Click Finish.
You can also take help from Dell Latitude 3450 Manual.