Multi-Site Set Up Help

[FallingWax]

Server

• FOG Version: 1.3.0-RC-14
• OS: Kubuntu 16.04

Client

• Service Version:
• OS:

Description

Spinning my wheels on why my step up is not working as imagined and looking for some help.

Main Server
Located in HQ - IP 192.168.0.194
Storage Node - Performing PXE/TFTP
Located at Remote Site - IP 192.168.5.135 (Connected via site to site VPN)

Both machines are set to do DHCP and PXE/TFTP tasks. It was my hope to be able to use a secondary NIC for those applications and only use the LAN IP’S (192.168.0.194/192.168.5.135) to replicate images. Seems to make sense form a management standpoint. I have come to find that this set up does not work. It can’t seem to negotiate across to the main server for registering a host.

All that being said, from what i can tell other people have done a similar set up effectively. So what I am looking for is advice on how to configure FOG to make this work.

I need the satellite office to receive the images from the main and image/register hosts. Its my hope to do this on a separate segment of the network to not crush bandwith on the .5 and .0 networks as they already have a heavy work load. If that is not possible I will look at other options but I want to look at the ideal first.

Does it make more sense to just set up both sites as stand alone machines and ftp new images to remote sites and update mysql table when new images are created?

[george1421]

I think I understand what you are asking and, its not possible. But let me repeat what you are asking in my words to see if I’m on target.

1. I have two locations with a FOG server at HQ with a network address of 192.168.0.194
2. I have a remote office with a Storage node with a network address of 192.168.5.135
3. Both FOG and Storage Nodes servers are running fine.
4. Now my question is can I add a second network interface to each server just for image replication? For example at HQ the second nic address would be 192.168.0.199 and at the remote site 192.168.5.199.

If this is what you are asking then the answer is still No. This is not a FOG issue or a linux issue, its a pure networking one. You can’t have 2 network adapters with the same IP address on the same network and choose to use one network for X things and the other network for Y stuff. The problem is the network layer of the OS will not know what interface to use. And even a bit more confusing if one network interface has a lower metric that interface will always be used for transmitting. This causes a problem if the network layer receives a data packet on one interface and then transmits the reply back out of another interface.

If you are concerned about FOG server bandwidth and consuming an entire network interface for imaging and then replication starts you still have options. Yon can setup network bonding to bond 2 or more network links into a bigger network trunk. This network trunk (or sometimes called a LAG group) can pass more data just like a multi lane road can pass more data at the same speed than a single lane road.

BUT, I suspect in your setup your site to site VPN link will be the slowest part of your replication as opposed to LAN speeds for image deployment. Also with replication you can set the maximum replication rate so that FOG doesn’t consume your entire VPN link for replication. You have a number of different options here, you just need to identify what problem you are trying t solve.

[Wayne Workman]

@FallingWax said in Multi-Site Set Up Help:

All that being said, from what i can tell other people have done a similar set up effectively.

What others have done isn’t the same as this. You probably read some threads where someone had a single fog server with two NICs, one for Internet access and the other for imaging on an isolated network, and both networks being different.

Do you have more than these two networks (192.168.0.0/24 and 192.168.5.0/24) ?

Also, what you probably need is the replication bandwidth limiter feature - not two NICs and all that other complicated stuff. Look here: Web Interface -> Storage Management -> [click node] -> Replication Bandwidth (Kbps) This value is Kbps, so to set 100Mbps it would be 100000. Use this feature to limit the rate of replication.

[FallingWax]

@Wayne-Workman ideally I don’t want to run imaging tasks on my main network. 192.168.0.0/24 is main at HQ and 192.168.5.0/24 is main at remote. At each location I want to have these two on let’s say a 192.168.6.0/24 remote and 192.168.1.0/24 main. This way all clients connect and image on the secondary network only really want the internal (main) for communication between nodes. What have other people set up to do remote offices? I am imagine if I run dnsmasq (already have dhcp for main networks) and just run imaging on the main networks everything will work but this is not ideal. Our dhcp is maxed out at main and could only image one or two machines.

[Wayne Workman]

So, how would you get hosts on the 192.168.0.0/24 network to image using the 192.168.1.0/24 network?

What other people have done is a mixture of things, and those things are dependent on a multitude of factors that include site-to-site bandwidth, available hardware, and how many people (and their skill level) you plan to have using fog, and what your expectations are. dnsmasq won’t help you at all if the DHCP server doesn’t have leases available. If I were in your position honestly I would re-subnet everything using 10.x.0.0/16.

What do you mean by ideal? Ideal for me means - At work, I can use a web interface on my laptop from any of our 24 buildings - and image any computer (or large group of computers) at any of the 24 buildings - without even being present there - and it work. And it does work. But we’ve set it up to work like this, using 15 servers in a distributed FOG system.

If using the network that computers are already connected to isn’t ideal, then how exactly do you intend to use fog? Changing V-LAN assignments on ports? Physically unhooking stuff and moving it to an imaging area?

What sort of network speeds do you have at your organization? There’s a lot of details that really do need examined when figuring out what sort of FOG setup would be best for you.

[FallingWax]

@Wayne-Workman Thanks for your responses! I have a working environment set up now. We may have some leg work to do to get to more ideal environment for our business, but I got everything working for our current needs. Abandoning the notion of dual nic’s was all i needed to do. We will probably work with the vlans to make it separate network sub but for now all is well.

[Wayne Workman]

@FallingWax Cool, I’m glad you found a way. If you have any further questions that are not on this thread’s topic, please open a new thread and we would be glad to help you.