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Backing up user profiles/data before deploying image

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  • T
    THEMCV
    last edited by Nov 17, 2016, 9:45 PM

    Debian 8
    FOG 1.3.0 RC-23

    I ran across this thread as I’m trying to find a solution for this

    Backup Feature for user profiles/Data

    FOG has changed in 4 years so I wasn’t sure if this scripts was something that could ever be implemented or if there was a better solution. Folder redirection, offline mode, and roaming profiles aren’t out of the question yet, but if we can use FOG I’d rather.

    The main issue right now is that our drives are encrypted with McAfee and so in order for this to work I suppose the FOG client would have to do the heavy lifting.

    If this isn’t something that can be done in general or for my environment, I’m okay to be told it can’t. 🙂

    Thanks!

    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
    • G
      george1421 Moderator
      last edited by Nov 17, 2016, 9:57 PM

      Since you have mcafee fde installed you will have to backup the user’s profiles in the windows environment. Linux FOS can’t help you here, or your drive encryption wouldn’t be very good.

      We use USMT to transfer the user’s profile to their home drive before imaging and then back after imaging. This is all done in the windows realm outside of FOG.

      Please help us build the FOG community with everyone involved. It's not just about coding - way more we need people to test things, update documentation and most importantly work on uniting the community of people enjoying and working on FOG!

      T 1 Reply Last reply Nov 18, 2016, 1:23 PM Reply Quote 1
      • W
        Wayne Workman
        last edited by Nov 17, 2016, 11:36 PM

        George is right.

        But, this makes me think of a feature request… predownloadscripts

        @Tom-Elliott thoughts?

        Please help us build the FOG community with everyone involved. It's not just about coding - way more we need people to test things, update documentation and most importantly work on uniting the community of people enjoying and working on FOG!
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        T 1 Reply Last reply Nov 17, 2016, 11:44 PM Reply Quote 0
        • T
          Tom Elliott @Wayne Workman
          last edited by Nov 17, 2016, 11:44 PM

          @Wayne-Workman I’ve pondered the idea of this but it’s not a good idea ultimately. Useful as it could be, what kinds of things would require before actions (beyond data backup)? I suppose there could be more uses but they’re still seeming rather ubiquitous. As for the profile backup portion I would recommend against it. While certainly there could be the occasional need, the idea of imaging is to have a “clean start”. Imaging if you’re imaging a system due to a virus. Backing up to place back on wouldn’t do much good I don’t think.

          Please help us build the FOG community with everyone involved. It's not just about coding - way more we need people to test things, update documentation and most importantly work on uniting the community of people enjoying and working on FOG! Get in contact with me (chat bubble in the top right corner) if you want to join in.

          Web GUI issue? Please check apache error (debian/ubuntu: /var/log/apache2/error.log, centos/fedora/rhel: /var/log/httpd/error_log) and php-fpm log (/var/log/php*-fpm.log)

          Please support FOG if you like it: https://wiki.fogproject.org/wiki/index.php/Support_FOG

          T T Q 3 Replies Last reply Nov 17, 2016, 11:45 PM Reply Quote 0
          • T
            Tom Elliott @Tom Elliott
            last edited by Nov 17, 2016, 11:45 PM

            @Tom-Elliott the good idea ultimately is referring to my own thoughts.

            Please help us build the FOG community with everyone involved. It's not just about coding - way more we need people to test things, update documentation and most importantly work on uniting the community of people enjoying and working on FOG! Get in contact with me (chat bubble in the top right corner) if you want to join in.

            Web GUI issue? Please check apache error (debian/ubuntu: /var/log/apache2/error.log, centos/fedora/rhel: /var/log/httpd/error_log) and php-fpm log (/var/log/php*-fpm.log)

            Please support FOG if you like it: https://wiki.fogproject.org/wiki/index.php/Support_FOG

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • T
              THEMCV @george1421
              last edited by Nov 18, 2016, 1:23 PM

              @george1421 How do you guys use USMT? See, I wondered about pulling their profile up before the FOG client rebooted them, then it pushed it back down similar to how the script works, but I don’t know that Windows will just accept the profile that’s there or if it’ll make a new one. Our computers are single user PCs.

              G 1 Reply Last reply Nov 18, 2016, 1:33 PM Reply Quote 0
              • T
                THEMCV @Tom Elliott
                last edited by Nov 18, 2016, 1:26 PM

                @Tom-Elliott Huh, yeah I suppose I didn’t think about that with the infections. I would hope that McAfee would grab it, but who are we kidding. It’s McAfee.

                We have some users who are having issues (first time FOG deployment here for a user) and that’s just something that’s come up. I’m trying to make it so I can tell it to image and the process is done from there. No touching it or anything. Just image and you have a new PC in 20 minutes. 🙂

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                • Q
                  Quazz Moderator @Tom Elliott
                  last edited by Nov 18, 2016, 1:26 PM

                  @Tom-Elliott You could theoretically scan the profile before backing it up, but seeing as anti-viruses aren’t perfect, this is bound to screw things up anyway.

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • G
                    george1421 Moderator @THEMCV
                    last edited by Nov 18, 2016, 1:33 PM

                    @THEMCV How we use it is a bit much to explain. But we do use USMT for workstation migrations and OS upgrades. We will use usmt scan state to copy all profiles and user data from the target computer to an IT share. Then image/swap the machine, and then finally use the usmt load state to import the user’s profile back to the new target computer. By default we install usmt on all computers as we are imaging them for its eventual use.

                    Here is a good article on using usmt: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj127984.aspx

                    Now in your case, you could use a snapin to issue the usmt scan state to copy the profiles to a common share before imaging and then a second snapin to copy them back post imaging. But I have never been to comfortable using that method. I would prefer my guys SEE the profiles being backed up and confirm the migration file exists before wiping the computer. The process does work, but on occasion there are hiccups. When the user logs in after the usmt migration they see exactly their profile on the old computer. We did create a custom xml config file to ensure that all files in all specific locations were being backed up.

                    The only caveat to usmt is the user that runs the scan state and load state must be a local admin on the box. Normal users can’t run the command successfully.

                    Please help us build the FOG community with everyone involved. It's not just about coding - way more we need people to test things, update documentation and most importantly work on uniting the community of people enjoying and working on FOG!

                    T 1 Reply Last reply Nov 18, 2016, 2:14 PM Reply Quote 0
                    • T
                      THEMCV @george1421
                      last edited by Nov 18, 2016, 2:14 PM

                      @george1421 I will take a look at that, thank you!

                      Yeah, I feel where you’re coming from. Which is why I’d like folder redirection so we don’t have to worry about them too much, but many of our users are mobile and I’ve heard some syncing horror stories. 😞

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • R
                        RobertD
                        last edited by May 15, 2019, 1:49 PM

                        Sorry to necro this thread, but I find myself needing to do the same thing requested here. Our staff is ultimately responsible for their data and making sure they save it to their network drives, but during summer re-imaging we always have someone that returns and have lost their data because they thought they saved it to the network drive, but didn’t.

                        What I would like to do is have FOG take a quick copy of the C:\Users directory and store it on a SMB share prior to imaging (Not the FOG server due to space restrictions). Can the FOS mount a SMB share from a postinit script so that rsync can be used?

                        G 1 Reply Last reply May 15, 2019, 1:55 PM Reply Quote 0
                        • G
                          george1421 Moderator @RobertD
                          last edited by May 15, 2019, 1:55 PM

                          @RobertD First to answer your question, no a smbclient is not included in the FOS OS. One could be added if you wanted to go through the buildroot process to make new inits.

                          I might take a different approach to this. One might use a FOG Snapin (or some other software deployment tool like PDQ Deploy) to deploy USMT to the user’s computer. From usmt I would then deploy a usmt “save state” to have it backup the user’s profile to some smb share. Since the fog client runs as SYSTEM you will need to make accommodations in your script that calls usmt to connect to the network share first then run the save state command. Once the imaging has been complete you can use the usmt load state to put the user’s profile back onto the computer exactly as they have left it. We use usmt as we migrate users to new computers and it has really helped with user migrations. We don’t use it as a fog snapin but interactively with batch scripts it runs rather well.

                          If your computer names would be consistent between reimages you could actually create a path on your smb share that embeds the %computername% so your restore script would know where to get the usmt image file from.

                          Please help us build the FOG community with everyone involved. It's not just about coding - way more we need people to test things, update documentation and most importantly work on uniting the community of people enjoying and working on FOG!

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • RobertDR
                            RobertD
                            last edited by May 15, 2019, 2:09 PM

                            @george1421 - I was afraid cifs wasn’t in the FOS which makes sense because it needs to be as lightweight as possible. I’ve looked into USMT, but it adds complexity and time to our re-imaging process in which we have limited time and staff for the size of school district we are.

                            Our campus techs typically don’t even login to the machine when re-imaging. They shut it off, run through the registration process and walk away. It’s completely finished when they come back. Adding additional steps to this process will prevent us from completing the re-imaging projects over summer due to the sheer number of machines we have to re-image. This is why it’s appealing to let FOG do it as part of it’s process.

                            I suppose I could always rsync it to the FOG server like /images/profiles/ then move everything off the fog server to an SMB share via FTP, but that seems kind of clunky.

                            george1421G 1 Reply Last reply May 15, 2019, 2:26 PM Reply Quote 0
                            • george1421G
                              george1421 Moderator @RobertD
                              last edited by May 15, 2019, 2:26 PM

                              @RobertD I’m not seeing it as a big time waster, but I don’t know your environment. The backup of the profile and the reimaging process doesn’t need to be synchronized. The last day of school +1 deploy the usmt application and make the profile backup (or what ever you need for backup) and then have the application deployment script power off the computer.

                              I could also recompile the inits with the smbclient included. It would not add much code to the base image. You would then need to use a postinit script to slide in your site smb.ini configuration file into the /etc directory. But that is also possible.

                              Please help us build the FOG community with everyone involved. It's not just about coding - way more we need people to test things, update documentation and most importantly work on uniting the community of people enjoying and working on FOG!

                              RobertDR 1 Reply Last reply May 15, 2019, 3:02 PM Reply Quote 0
                              • RobertDR
                                RobertD @george1421
                                last edited by May 15, 2019, 3:02 PM

                                @george1421 - I hate to impose binaries into the inits if no one else has a use for them. I’m just trying to figure out a way to do this without adding additional mechanics to our current process.

                                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                • S
                                  Sebastian Roth Moderator
                                  last edited by May 15, 2019, 5:06 PM

                                  @RobertD Just a quick idea, maybe use a post-init script that copies the files to a NFS share?

                                  Web GUI issue? Please check apache error (debian/ubuntu: /var/log/apache2/error.log, centos/fedora/rhel: /var/log/httpd/error_log) and php-fpm log (/var/log/php*-fpm.log)

                                  Please support FOG if you like it: https://wiki.fogproject.org/wiki/index.php/Support_FOG

                                  RobertDR 1 Reply Last reply May 15, 2019, 7:27 PM Reply Quote 0
                                  • RobertDR
                                    RobertD @Sebastian Roth
                                    last edited by May 15, 2019, 7:27 PM

                                    @Sebastian-Roth We are actually trying that right now, however we are struggling to mount it with write access. It keeps giving us “Read-only file system” when we try something like touch /imagesinit/userbackup/text.txt.

                                    george1421G 1 Reply Last reply May 15, 2019, 7:39 PM Reply Quote 0
                                    • EduardoTSeoaneE
                                      EduardoTSeoane
                                      last edited by May 15, 2019, 7:36 PM

                                      I do it.

                                      Creating an rw nfs share and rsyncing folders from fog.postinit.

                                      You can do it to fog or to another file server.

                                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                      • george1421G
                                        george1421 Moderator @RobertD
                                        last edited by george1421 May 15, 2019, 1:42 PM May 15, 2019, 7:39 PM

                                        @RobertD You can install NFS on ms windows. I have a proof of concept on how to turn windows box into a fog storage node (not really recommended, but I wanted to see if I could do it). The point it is shows you how the setup the permissions for the nfs share so that FOS can mount it.

                                        https://forums.fogproject.org/topic/6941/windows-server-as-fog-storage-node-proof-of-concept-blog

                                        Please help us build the FOG community with everyone involved. It's not just about coding - way more we need people to test things, update documentation and most importantly work on uniting the community of people enjoying and working on FOG!

                                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                        • RobertDR
                                          RobertD
                                          last edited by May 15, 2019, 7:44 PM

                                          Not sure why it isn’t working.

                                          1. We created a new directory within our /images folder on the fog server called userbackup.
                                          2. We set permissions with chmod 777 on this folder.
                                          3. Booting a host with a deploy debug task.
                                          4. From the host we tried the following
                                          mkdir /userbackup
                                          mount -o nolock,proto=tcp,rw "1.2.3.4:/images/userbackup" /userbackup
                                          touch /userbackup/test.txt
                                          "This is a read-only file system"
                                          

                                          Are we missing something in our mount statement?

                                          george1421G EduardoTSeoaneE 2 Replies Last reply May 15, 2019, 7:48 PM Reply Quote 0
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