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    george1421

    @george1421

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    Testers Moderator

    Best posts made by george1421

    • Installing dnsmasq on your FOG server

      Use dnsmasq on the fog server to supply the pxe boot information.

      The quick steps are this.

      1. Remove the pxe boot information from your router.
      2. Install dnsmasq service from your linux distribution’s repo
      3. Make sure its at least version 2.76 by issuing this command at the fog server’s linux command prompt sudo dnsmasq -v The version needs to be 2.76 or later.
      4. Create a configuration file called ltsp.conf in /etc/dnsmasq.d directory.
      5. Paste this content into that file.
      # Don't function as a DNS server:
      port=0
      
      # Log lots of extra information about DHCP transactions.
      log-dhcp
      
      # Set the root directory for files available via FTP.
      tftp-root=/tftpboot
      
      # The boot filename, Server name, Server Ip Address
      dhcp-boot=undionly.kpxe,,<fog_server_IP>
      
      # Disable re-use of the DHCP servername and filename fields as extra
      # option space. That's to avoid confusing some old or broken DHCP clients.
      dhcp-no-override
      
      # inspect the vendor class string and match the text to set the tag
      dhcp-vendorclass=BIOS,PXEClient:Arch:00000
      dhcp-vendorclass=UEFI32,PXEClient:Arch:00006
      dhcp-vendorclass=UEFI,PXEClient:Arch:00007
      dhcp-vendorclass=UEFI64,PXEClient:Arch:00009
      
      # Set the boot file name based on the matching tag from the vendor class (above)
      dhcp-boot=net:UEFI32,i386-efi/ipxe.efi,,<fog_server_IP>
      dhcp-boot=net:UEFI,ipxe.efi,,<fog_server_IP>
      dhcp-boot=net:UEFI64,ipxe.efi,,<fog_server_IP>
      
      # PXE menu.  The first part is the text displayed to the user.  The second is the timeout, in seconds.
      pxe-prompt="Booting FOG Client", 1
      
      # The known types are x86PC, PC98, IA64_EFI, Alpha, Arc_x86,
      # Intel_Lean_Client, IA32_EFI, BC_EFI, Xscale_EFI and X86-64_EFI
      # This option is first and will be the default if there is no input from the user.
      pxe-service=X86PC, "Boot to FOG", undionly.kpxe
      pxe-service=X86-64_EFI, "Boot to FOG UEFI", ipxe.efi
      pxe-service=BC_EFI, "Boot to FOG UEFI PXE-BC", ipxe.efi
      
      dhcp-range=<fog_server_IP>,proxy
      
      1. Be sure to replace <fog_server_ip> exactly with the IP address of your fog server. Be aware that <fog_server_ip> appears multiple times in the config file.
      2. Save and exit your text edit.
      3. Issue the following command to restart dnsmasq service sudo systemctl restart dnsmasq
      4. Ensure that dnsmasq service is running in memory by issuing this command ps aux|grep dnsmasq. You should see more than one line in the response. If its running then go to step 10.
      5. Ensure that dnsmasq starts when the system is rebooting with sudo systemctl enable dnsmasq
      6. PXE boot a target computer.

      NOTE: If you are supporting multiple foreign subnets (not on the same subnet as your dnsmasq server, you will need to add additional with dhcp-range statements that properly describe that foreign network segment. If you fail to do this the dnsmasq server will not respond to the request from your dhcp-relay service an example of what is needed is below:

      dhcp-range=<fog_server_IP>,proxy
      dhcp-range=192.168.100.0,proxy,255.255.255.0
      dhcp-range=172.16.45.0,proxy,255.255.255.0
      

      Dhcp option 93 to hardware type table

      DHCP option 93 Client architecture|
      0 Standard PC BIOS
      6 32-bit x86 EFI
      7 64-bit x86 EFI
      9 64-bit x86 EFI (obsolete)
      10 32-bit ARM EFI
      11 64-bit ARM EFI

      posted in Tutorials
      george1421G
      george1421
    • FOG Post install script for Win Driver injection

      Introduction

      First I have to say this article contains the results of many brilliant people and is not my content. I’m only assembling this information into a consistent document instead of spread around buried in posts and responses. My intent is to not dig into the details behind the scripts or how to tweak them for your needs. You can read the links below to figure out why things are being done the way they are. I wanted to create a tutorial that was as close to a cut and paste to get driver injection going in your environment. Now I will primarily focus on Dell hardware for the main reason that Dell does supply driver archive files (known as .CABs) that can be downloaded and extracted quickly to create the driver structure. I’m sure that HP, Lenovo, and others have similar driver packs.

      You can download the Dell driver cabs for your hardware from here: http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/enterprise-client/w/wiki/2065.dell-command-deploy-driver-packs-for-enterprise-client-os-deployment

      Reference links:
      https://forums.fogproject.org/topic/4278/utilizing-postscripts-rename-joindomain-drivers-snapins
      https://forums.fogproject.org/topic/7740/the-magical-mystical-fog-post-download-script-under-construction
      https://forums.fogproject.org/topic/7740/the-magical-mystical-fog-post-download-script
      https://forums.fogproject.org/topic/8878/fog-drivers-script-will-not-run-correctly-in-postdownloadscripts/46

      posted in Tutorials
      george1421G
      george1421
    • The magical, mystical FOG post download script

      In this series if posts I plan on outlining what the FOG post download script is, what its about, and how to use it to your advantage with image deployment.

      I’ve debated with myself if another post was needed since Lee https://forums.fogproject.org/topic/4278/utilizing-postscripts-rename-joindomain-drivers-snapins and I https://forums.fogproject.org/topic/7391/deploying-a-single-golden-image-to-different-hardware-with-fog have written tutorial about them in the past.

      Where I want to explore with this series of posts is more about the background behind its function and to cover some of the script elements from Lee’s and my previously linked tutorials.

      First of all lets get a little background here and some terminology defined. The FOG image deployment system consists of three main components:

      1. The FOG management environment. The FOG management environment is the FOG server itself, which is responsible for planning, scheduling, instructing and documenting the image deployment.
      2. The FOS (FOG OS) target engine {need better name here}. The FOS target engine, or FOS (as it will be known in this document) is responsible for capturing and deploying images from the defined storage node, as well as other actions on the target computer. FOS is actually an FOG Project created high performance linux operating system that was specifically constructed to image target computers. We have to remember for the rest of the tutorial, FOS is a linux based operating system that is used to deploy any OS image to your target computer.
      3. FOG Client. This is an add on utility service for windows and linux, which is installed on the final or target OS. The FOG Client queries the FOG server for instructions and actions. I’m not planning on discussing the FOG client during this tutorial since it is out of scope in regards to post installation scripting.

      The FOG Post install scripts give FOG system admins the ability to inject actions in the image creation process. To allow this custom scripts to run the developers added an external call into the image deployment sequence. Just after the image is placed on the target computer’s storage device, the FOG server calls a script in the /images/postdownloadscripts directory (on the FOG server). That script is called fog.postdownload. The fog.postdownload script is created when the FOG Server is installed. In its default state the script doesn’t do anything much. It is just a place holder to call your custom post install scripts. As I mentioned the fog deployment process calls this fog.postdownload bash script just after the image is placed on the target computer’s storage device. Once all of the external post install scripts have completed the FOG server completes the imaging and data recording steps.

      While the post install scripts are stored on the FOG server in the /images/postinstall directory, they are executed by FOS running on the target host. So you have to remember when writing your post install scripts, they execute from the perspective of the target host. The post install scripts have limited access to resources on the FOG server (outside of the /images directory), but have full access to the target host. As noted above, these scripts run on a linux OS, so any resource (programs) available to linux operating systems can be run against the target host. I want to make this distinction to make it clear that FOS is linux and not MS Windows based. So you can not run MS Windows based applications, like DISM, in your post install script. FOS and linux is very powerful, but also limiting in some ways. As long as you are aware that MS Windows based applications can not run in a post install script then you should have little trouble. There are some cross over applications that are compiled for both MS Windows and linux, you just need to ensure you have the correct application for the OS and architecture (IA32 or X64).

      posted in Tutorials
      george1421G
      george1421
    • Using FOG to PXE boot into your favorite installer images

      Setting up the foundation for installation

      Hopefully this setup will be pretty clean and easy (just hoping…)

      In this tutorial, I’ve personally setup each distribution and booted it into a virtual machine. I didn’t run the installer to completion, but I did ensure the installer was running as far as I took the install (unless otherwise noted).

      These setups were only tested with a bios (legacy mode) target computer. They WILL NOT work with uefi systems. For uefi based systems they have their own kernel requirements and options. The intent of this tutorial was to show its possible to boot your installation media via pxe booting.

      First we need to setup the storage locations for our boot images. The plan is to put the installation media on the /images nfs share and the boot kernel and initfs in the tftp boot directory.

      mkdir /images/os
      mkdir /tftpboot/os
      mkdir /mnt/loop
      

      For the foundation setup that should do it. On to the OS specific configuration…

      Link to Windows 7 & Windows 10 BIOS Mode Only
      Link WinPE 10 for BIOS and UEFI based systems
      Link to Centos 7
      Link to Ubuntu 16.04.03
      Link to Ubuntu Desktop 19.10
      Link to Ubuntu Server 19.10
      Link to Ubuntu 17.10 Desktop
      Link to Ubuntu 16.04.03
      Link to Linux Mint 18.1
      Link to Linux Mint 19.1 Cinnamon
      Link to Debian 9.2
      Link to OpenSuSE Leap 42.3
      Link to Fedora Workstation v26
      Link to Fedora Workstation v27
      Link to Ubuntu Desktop 17.10
      Link to installing Samba on your FOG server
      Link to Kali Live 2017.3
      Link to ESXi v6.5u1
      Link to ESXi v6.7u2
      Link to SystemRescueCd 5.2.2 x64
      Link to GParted 0.33.0 x86
      Veeam Agent Rescue DVD
      Acronis 2018 (WinPE version)
      Paragon Hard Disk Manager
      Parted Magic version from May 2023

      posted in Tutorials
      george1421G
      george1421
    • RE: FOG broke my hard drive, why?

      The developers found this issue to why the log file grew so big (after almost a year of log file collection). The log file will now be capped at the log file maximum set by the fog configuration settings. This was just a fluke case that caused this file to grow to an abnormal size.

      The fix / log file limiting code will be in 1.3.5RC11 when its released.

      posted in Bug Reports
      george1421G
      george1421
    • RE: How does iPXE load fog files from the init.xz image

      What you need to understand that the FOS Engine (the customized linux operating system that captures and deployed images on the target computer) is a complete linux OS. It is built with 2 halves. The first part is the the kernel (bzImage) which contains the core linux functions as well as the compiled in device drivers. And the second part is the virtual hard drive (inits) which contains the linux utilities, programs, and fog command scripts. When you PXE boot a target computer into the iPXE menu, certain iPXE menu options will send the bzImage and inits files to the target computer. The iPXE menu will also send specific kernel parameters to tell the FOS Engine (linux) how to react when it boots.

      You can take the FOS Engine (bzImage and inits) and just as easily boot directly from a usb flash if you use grub as your boot loader. The FOS Engine will boot from the USB stick without requiring the FOG server to be online. The FOS Engine won’t do much without the proper kernel parameters being passed from the FOG server. But in the end FOS is a specialized, high performance, standalone linux OS.

      Now for specifics, I don’t have the details from inside FOS, but I suspect there is something in /etc/init.d that calls the main fog script called /bin/fog that script. The fog master script reads in the passed kernel parameters and then selects the proper task to execute.

      posted in General
      george1421G
      george1421
    • Deploying a single golden image to different hardware with FOG

      Preface

      The bits I’m going to cover here are the general outline of what needs to be done to create and deploy a hardware independent image across your fleet of computers. In this tutorial I’m going to discuss how to do this with Dell computers. I know this process works with Lenovo, Intel NUC, and a few others with some caveats. I’m going to touch on some steps that you need to do in MDT to build your universal reference image, but I’m not going to discuss how to setup MDT to create your reference images. There are plenty of examples on the internet on how to do this.

      This process makes use of a custom script that gets executed post image deployment but prior to the reboot of the FOS client. This step is vial since we need to make some tweaks to the windows environment pre first windows boot. This is the key. I can’t/won’t share that script I created because of my contract with my employer, because it is derived work because of my employment. So that script is intellectual property of my company. I’ve held the job title of unemployed, its not a great title. The pay stinks, the stress level is high, but the hours are great. I don’t plan on going there any time soon, so no script for you. BUT, sitting here on my zorin (ubuntu) dell laptop I should be able to reverse engineer the important parts to give the crafty scripters here the tools they need to create their own post install script.

      Our master image is created following the standard Microsoft SOE guidelines, meaning MDT to build the reference image, sysprep to reseal the image, use a custom unattend.xml file (required to make this process work for Win10) and some disk imaging tool to capture and deploy the image to the target hardware. In this process sysprep is mandatory since we want to create a single image that can be deployed to any hardware. The generalize process of sysprep removes all hardware references (for the reference image) so that when windows first boots it goes through the hardware discovery process. Without sysprepping the image the process I’m going to discuss will not work. So use sysprep.

      When I started out creating this process for FOG, I began with the process we created for deploying Windows XP from a usb stick using Ghost. In that process we would automate the image deployment with ghost to lay a hardware independent image onto the target hardware and then detect the current hardware using a DOS program that would query smbios to get the target hardware. Then once the target hardware was known we would move the correct driver pack into a location where windows would find it on the first boot. This worked extremely well with Windows XP. So I took the knowledge that I had from that process and tried to do something similar with FOG.

      I do have to say I did not think up this entire process all by my self. I did start the design base on the information found on this wiki page. https://wiki.fogproject.org/wiki/index.php?title=Auto_driver_Install This page and associated scripts gave me just what I needed to take our xp/ghost process and covert it to windows 7/FOG. So without that wiki page the remainder could not be possible.

      posted in Tutorials
      george1421G
      george1421
    • Synology NAS as FOG Storage node

      NOTE: Changes in FOG's code since this article was written have made it harder to use NAS' as storage node with FOG. If you use a NAS with FOG 1.5.x and beyond the FOG replicator will continue to cycle and recopy files over and over again.

      Part 1 NAS Setup

      So far I’ve setup what should work from the synology NAS side of the fog storage node. This has NOT been proven to work just yet. So far the synology nas has been configured to what “should work”. On my test NAS I’m using DSM 6.0.

      The following is just my short hand notes that will be used to create the actual tutorial. I’m out of time tonight to complete the docs for this.

      The first thing we need to do is setup our NAS with the required network shares. To do this you need access to the Synology NAS’s web console. Log into the web console as admin and do the following.

      1. Control Panel->Shared Folder
        Create new share
        Name: images
        Location: volume 1
        Checked Hide this shared folder in My Network Places
        Checked Hide sub-folders and files from users without permissions
        Press OK
        NFS Permission (tab)
        Create new Permission
        Hostname or IP: *
        Privilege: Read/Write
        Squash: No mapping
        Security: sys
        Checked Enable asynchronous
        Checked Allow users to access mounted subfolders

      2. Control Panel->Shared Folder
        Create new share
        Name: snapins
        Location: volume 1
        Checked Hide this shared folder in My Network Places
        Checked Hide sub-folders and files from users without permissions
        Press OK
        NFS Permision (tab)
        Create new Permission
        Hostname or IP: *
        Privilege: Read/Write
        Squash: No mapping
        Security: sys
        Checked Enable asynchronous

      3. Control Panel->Shared Folder
        Create new Share
        Name: tftpboot
        Location: volume 1
        Checked Hide this shared folder in My Network Places
        Checked Hide sub-folders and files from users without permissions
        Press OK
        NFS Permission (tab)
        Create new Permission (we only need this nfs shared for setting up the storage node)
        Hostname or IP: *
        Privilege: Read/Write
        Squash: No mapping
        Security: sys
        Checked Enable asynchronous

      4. Control Panel->File Services
        Select Win/Mac/NFS (tab)
        Checked Enable NFS

      5. Control Panel->File Services
        Select FTP (tab)
        Checked Enable FTP service (no encryption)
        Checked Use the default port range

      6. Control Panel->File Services
        Select TFTP (tab)
        Checked Enable TFTP service
        TFTP root folder: tftpboot (this is the share name we created above)

      7. Control Panel->User
        Select User (tab)
        Create user foguser
        Name: foguser
        Description: FOG User
        Password: fogremote1 (pick your own secure password)
        Conform Password: fogremote1
        Checked Disallow the user to change account password
        Press Next
        Join to group: users
        Press Next
        images: RW
        snapins: RW
        tftpboot: RO
        Press Next
        (Assign quota as needed)
        Press Next
        Assign application permissions: None
        Press Next
        Speed limiting: None
        Press Next
        Press Apply

      8. Control Panel->User
        Select the Advanced (tab)
        (scroll way at bottom)
        Under User Home
        Checked Enable user home service
        Press Apply

      That completes the setup of the Synology NAS.

      In the next part we’ll test the network shares we setup above and create the remaining flag files and directory structure needed to transform the Synology NAS into a FOG storage node.

      posted in Tutorials
      george1421G
      george1421
    • RE: Expose FOG host and image properties to post install scripts

      LET ME SAY THIS RIGHT OF THE BAT, I have not used this in my test environment, only on my dev box. So it may work well for production or it may fall flat. (it shouldn't because the code is solid). After my holiday I'll test it completely in my test environment before moving it to production.

      I think I was able to create a solution for this issue. I attempted to do a git fork / pull request but I’m not sure it worked so for the sake of documentation I’ll update what I was able to do there.

      First I created two new FOG Server pages. One is to pull the system variables I need into the fog postdownload bash scripts. The second page allows me to update/change a registered fog target computer name from a postdownload script. Just some background on this, my target machine names are all calculated based on the computer serial number and a OU prefix. Currently I’m using an unused field in FOG (Other1) to hold this OU prefix. So to properly and automatically name the target computer I need to pick up the serial number from smbios and combine it with the value from the other1 field in the host information. Below is what I’ve worked out to extend FOG to what I need.

      Create the following file: /var/www/html/fog/service/sethostname.php

      <?php
      require_once('../commons/base.inc.php');
      FOGCore::getClass('SetHostName');
      

      Create the following file: /var/www/html/fog/service/hostinfo.php

      <?php
      require_once('../commons/base.inc.php');
      FOGCore::getClass('Hostinfo');
      

      Create the following class file: /var/www/html/fog/lib/fog/sethostname.class.php

      <?php
      class SetHostName extends FOGBase {
          protected $macSimple;
          protected $newName;
          protected $oldName;
      
          public function __construct($check = false) {
              parent::__construct();
      
              self::stripAndDecode($_REQUEST);
              $this->macSimple = strtolower(str_replace(array(':','-'),':',substr($_REQUEST['mac'],0,20)));
              $this->newName = substr(trim($_REQUEST['newname']," \t\n\r\0"),0,20);
              $this->oldName = substr(trim($_REQUEST['oldname']," \t\n\r\0"),0,20);
      
              ob_start();
              header('Content-Type: text/plain');
              header('Connection: close');
      
              if ((strlen($this->newName) > 3) & (strlen($this->oldName) > 0)) {
                  $query = sprintf("UPDATE hosts JOIN hostMAC ON (hostMAC.hmHostID = hosts.hostID) SET hostName='%s' WHERE ( (hostMAC.hmMAC='%s') AND (hostName LIKE '%s') );", $this->newName, $this->macSimple, $this->oldName);
      
                  self::$DB->query($query);
                  echo "OK";
              } else {
                  echo "Fail";
              }
              flush();
              ob_flush();
              ob_end_flush();
          }
      }
      

      Create the following class file: /var/www/html/fog/lib/fog/hostinfo.class.php

      <?php
      class HostInfo extends FOGBase {
          protected $macSimple;
          protected $repFields = array(
              'hostName' => 'hostname',
              'hostDesc' => 'hostdesc',
              'imageOSID' => 'imageosid',
              'imagePath' => 'imagepath',
              'hostUseAD' => 'hostusead',
              'hostADDomain' => 'hostaddomain',
              'hostADOU' => 'hostadou',
              'hostProductKey' => 'hostproductkey',
              'iPrimaryUser' => 'primaryuser',
              'iOtherTag' => 'othertag',
              'iOtherTag1' => 'othertag1',
              'lName' => 'location',
              'iSysman' => 'sysman',
              'iSysproduct' => 'sysproduct',
              'iSysserial' => 'sysserial',
              'iMbman' => 'mbman',
              'iMbserial' => 'mbserial',
              'iMbasset' => 'mbasset',
              'iMbproductname' => 'mbproductname',
              'iCaseman' => 'caseman',
              'iCaseserial' => 'caseserial',
              'iCaseasset' => 'caseasset',
          );
      
          public function __construct($check = false) {
              parent::__construct();
      
              self::stripAndDecode($_REQUEST);
              $this->macSimple = strtolower(str_replace(array(':','-'),':',substr($_REQUEST['mac'],0,20)));
      
              $query = sprintf("SELECT hostName,hostDesc,imageOSID,imagePath,hostUseAD,hostADDomain,hostADOU,hostProductKey,iPrimaryUser,iOtherTag,iOtherTag1,lName,iSysman,iSysproduct,iSysserial,iMbman,iMbserial,iMbasset,iMbproductname,iCaseman,iCaseserial,iCaseasset FROM (((hostMAC INNER JOIN (hosts LEFT JOIN images ON hosts.hostImage = images.imageID) ON hostMAC.hmHostID = hosts.hostID) LEFT JOIN inventory ON hosts.hostID = inventory.iHostID) LEFT JOIN locationAssoc ON hosts.hostID = locationAssoc.laHostID) LEFT JOIN location ON locationAssoc.laLocationID = location.lID WHERE (hostMAC.hmMAC='%s');", $this->macSimple);
      
              $tmp = (array)self::$DB->query($query)->fetch('','fetch_all')->get();
      
              ob_start();
              header('Content-Type: text/plain');
              header('Connection: close');
      
              foreach ((array)$tmp AS $i => &$DataRow) {
                  foreach ((array)$DataRow AS $j => &$DataField) {
                      echo  "export " . $this->repFields[$j] . "=\"" . $DataField . "\"\n";
                      unset($DataField);
                  }
                  unset($DataRow);
              };
              flush();
              ob_flush();
              ob_end_flush();
          }
      }
      

      And finally the post install bits

      Edit /images/postdownloadscripts/fog.postdownload and insert the following command before your custom post install script

      . ${postdownpath}fog.hostinfo
      

      Create the following file: /images/postdownloadscripts/fog.hostinfo

      #!/bin/bash
      
        . /usr/share/fog/lib/funcs.sh;
        wget -q -O /tmp/hinfo.txt "http://<fog_server_IP>/fog/service/hostinfo.php?mac=$mac"
        . /tmp/hinfo.txt
        rm -f /tmp/hinfo.txt
      

      If everything works as expected you should now have access to the following bash variables in your post install script

      $hostname == name of the host (should overwrite existing $hostname)
      $hostdesc == Description of host
      $imageosid == Operating System ID (should be the same as $osid)
      $imagepath == The root path of the image(should also be the image name)
      $hostusead == 1 or 0 to add host to AD
      $hostaddomain == host domain name
      $hostadou == host target ou
      $hostproductkey == host product key
      $primaryuser == Value from Primary User field
      $othertag == Value from OtherTag field
      $othertag1 == Value from OtherTag1 field
      $location == Location Name from location plugin
      $sysman == System Manufacturer from smbios
      $sysproduct == System Product Name from smbios (from full registration)
      $sysserial == System Serial Number from smbios (from full registration)
      $mbman == Motherboard Manufacturer from smbios (from full registration)
      $mbserial == Motherboard Serial Number from smbios (from full registration)
      $mbasset == Motherboard Asset tag from smbios (from full registration)
      $mbproductname == Motherboard Product Name from smbios (from full registration)
      $caseman == Case Manufacturer from smbios (from full registration)
      $caseserial == Case Serial Number from smbios (from full registration)
      $caseasset == Case Asset tag from smbios (from full registration)
      

      And the last bit is to call the set host name function.
      wget -q -“http://<fog_server_IP>/fog/service/sethostname.php?mac=$mac&oldname=$oldhostname&newname=$newhostname”

      For this script to work you must supply the host mac address, its new host name and for safety sake its old host name to prevent an accidental host name change.

      posted in Feature Request
      george1421G
      george1421
    • When DHCP-PXE booting process goes bad and you have no clue

      Sometimes when we can’t understand why the pxe booting process is going sideways and we’ve touched on the common causes, the easiest solution is to setup the FOG server to eavesdrop on the dhcp setup process between the dhcp server and pxe booting client.

      This process will work perfectly if the fog server, dhcp server, and pxe booting client are in the same broadcast domain (IP subnet, network, vlan). It will work if your fog server and pxe booting client are on the same subnet too, its just not as clean of a trace. And the last way to achieve this is to use a second computer running wireshark on the same subnet as the pxe booting computer. Setting up the wireshark filters are similar to the tcpdump filters, but that is a bit beyond the scope of this tutorial.

      This is going to be a pretty low impact test. We just want to capture a packet trace of the pxe booting process to the error.

      First a little background. The DHCP protocol is broadcast based. That means that discovery, offer, request and ack are all sent as broadcast messages (because the client doesn’t have an IP address during this process). Knowing this fact we can eavesdrop on the communication between the dhcp server and pxe client with the FOG server as long as all three are in the same broadcast domain, subnet, vlan, etc.

      So what we need to do is this:

      1. Install tcpdump on your FOG server from your linux distributions repository.
      2. Start tcpdump on the FOG server’s linux console with this command tcpdump -w output.pcap port 67 or port 68 or port 69 or port 4011
      3. PXE boot the target computer until you see the error or the FOG iPXE menu
      4. Wait about 5 seconds then hit ctrl-C on the FOG server’s linux console.
      5. You can review the pcap with Wireshark or upload it to a developer/moderator for their review.

      Just a quick sidebar: We are telling tcpdump to write the output of the packet capture to output.pcap. And we have setup some filters because we only care about dhcp (port 67 and 68), tftp (port 69), and dhcpProxy (4011). One thing you should do is keep the time when you start tcpdump and start the pxe boot process on the client as short as possible. Because if you have a busy dhcp network we may key in on the wrong dhcp boot process. So you want to start tcpdump and then right away start the target pxe booting.

      posted in Tutorials
      george1421G
      george1421

    Latest posts made by george1421

    • RE: Sub 512MB RAM Devices

      @skyhawk3355 I remember awhile ago I needed to create a one-off kernel for a system that had a 486 cpu. I checked but I don’t have that kernel any more.

      I just recompiled the linux 6.6.85 for a 586 based CPU. I can recompile for a 486, but I don’t know if that is going to get us anything better.

      Here is 6.6.85 586 version
      https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GAzFjbtpDVXXCRpe6bIZ5mwySSXeDHko/view?usp=drive_link

      Here is 6.6.85 586 where I stripped out some drivers like scsi, nvme, uncommon network drivers, virtualization drivers, etc. I was able to strip out over 1MB of kernel size from the previous one above. Did I through out too much?? YMMV.
      https://drive.google.com/file/d/13dE7BLgofsFiNJj_Q8nLDknplRbWRqkJ/view?usp=drive_link

      posted in Hardware Compatibility
      george1421G
      george1421
    • RE: ASUS NUC14MNK fos kernel no netwerk drivers

      @Eazis said in ASUS NUC14MNK fos kernel no netwerk drivers:

      So the 8125 driver was missing?

      Well if you close one eye and squint with the other, you can still see it. The kernel developers consolidated all of the realtek drivers into the 8169 driver which kind of works except the driver updates lags behind the hardware by a few months. It looks like the FOG developers have a way to integrate the official realtek drivers moving forward so that should make life with the reaktek nics easier because realtek releases a new subversion of the hardware every few months.

      Anyway I’m glad you have your issue sorted out and the FOG developers have a plan forward too. @rodluz (well done!)

      posted in FOG Problems
      george1421G
      george1421
    • RE: FOG Very Slow to Deploy Image - Lenovo Neo 50Q Gen 4

      @rodluz said in FOG Very Slow to Deploy Image - Lenovo Neo 50Q Gen 4:

      That is exactly what I did, I disabled the 8169 driver from the kernel config too.

      Good going. That 8125 driver was originally in the linux kernel individually but then the driver was merged into the 8169 unified driver which has not kept up with the realtek hardware changes. I was getting lost trying to integrate a third party driver into the linux kernel. I could compile it as a module and add it to the init.xz but that is not a sustainable solution. If you have it integrated into the kernel for the 8169 (1GbE) and 8125 (2.5GbE) that should cover most of the common network adapters today from realtek (outside of the 10GbE stuff, but those haven’t hit the desktops yet).
      Well done!

      posted in FOG Problems
      george1421G
      george1421
    • RE: ASUS NUC14MNK fos kernel no netwerk drivers

      @Eazis Will you test a new experimental kernel that @rodluz in this post
      https://forums.fogproject.org/post/156904

      posted in FOG Problems
      george1421G
      george1421
    • RE: Cannot boot W11 deployment with RAID turned on

      @jack_darnellits Historically when the intel rst adapter is in raid-on mode linux can’t see the disk behind the raid controller and the sata controller presents itself as a different device depending on the raid mode. When you look at it when its in ahci mode linux will see it as a sata controller, when its in raid mode linux sees it as a different device, not a sata controller but a raid controller with a different device ID.

      So that is all historical information. I’m a bit surprised that you were able to image the system in raid mode with FOG (because of historical experiences). You did the right thing by loading the intel rst driver into your golden image. My past experiences with the intel drive is that you need to make sure you have the right one. I’ve had troubles loading windows from dvd on laptops where its not seeing the drive and getting the right F6 driver seemed to be a real pita.

      With all that said, what I would do is try to get into windows using recovery mode, that may mean booting from a recovery drive. Verify what you are loading into your mother image is the proper intel driver for the OS to see the network drive. Also make sure you have the dell winpe drivers loaded into the golden image too (you can use the pnputil.exe command to load drivers from the expanded cab file). Right after imaging windows first boot is in winpe mode. The real mode drivers might not be available since windows has not really started.

      posted in Windows Problems
      george1421G
      george1421
    • RE: FOG Very Slow to Deploy Image - Lenovo Neo 50Q Gen 4

      @rodluz said in FOG Very Slow to Deploy Image - Lenovo Neo 50Q Gen 4:

      You are welcome to continue using the “OEM driver” kernel for now until I create a full upstream release.

      What did you do here, did you fold in the realtek oem driver into the kernel build. I was looking at going this path for another open issue with a realtek 8125, where the oem driver solves a lot of the issues with the default universal drive 8169.

      posted in FOG Problems
      george1421G
      george1421
    • RE: FOG Very Slow to Deploy Image - Lenovo Neo 50Q Gen 4

      @olivier-bonnici said in FOG Very Slow to Deploy Image - Lenovo Neo 50Q Gen 4:

      tar xzf linux-6.14.9.tar.gz

      Ah that explains the difference. You didn’t just rebuild the kernel you jump to the next version. The FOG developers typically only use long term supported kernel. Currently the latest long term kernel is 6.12.x, you used a development kernel 6.14.x which is not EOL (just means fixes and updates will not happen in this branch).

      It looks like whatever was causing the slowness was resolved in 6,14.x and later versions of the linux kernel. Thank you for the clarification.

      posted in FOG Problems
      george1421G
      george1421
    • RE: Sub 512MB RAM Devices

      @skyhawk3355 said in Sub 512MB RAM Devices:

      ith my 384Mb computer it’ll boot to the menu but will freeze on inventory or imaging.

      To just add a little clarity here. The iPXE menu is under the control of iPXE. Once you pick a menu item FOS (bzImage and init.xz) is loaded into memory and executed.

      Both bzImage and init.xz are compressed images, so the size on disk is not indicative of the space consumed in RAM. Both are decompressed as they are loaded into memory. I’d have to look to verify, but I think bzImage is in the 8MB range and init.xz is in the 200mb range.

      If you just consider the baselines of a standard gzip compression ratio of 1.6:1, the kernel will expand to 13MB, and the 200MB init.xz would expand to 332MB. That puts us at 345MB for just the image to be held in memory. That leaves almost no ram to execute FOS. Just to caveat this, I have not looked at what the current size of bzImage and init.xz are.

      Now if you have no choice, surely look into the 32 bit version of FOS linux since it should consume less space. But with 384MB of ram, that is going to be very tight.

      Second option is to remove the hard drive from the computer and image it on a system that has a bit more resources, then place the drive back into the limited computer for first boot.

      posted in Hardware Compatibility
      george1421G
      george1421
    • RE: ASUS NUC14MNK fos kernel no netwerk drivers

      @Eazis Will you do a few things to help us try to sort this out?

      Schedule a capture or deploy to this computer, but before you do tick the debug checkbox before scheduling the task. If you don’t have this computer registered with the FOG server manually register it.

      Now pxe boot the target computer, it should start to image right away, but instead of imaging it will drop you to a linux console on the target computer. There will be several screens of text you will need to clear with the enter key, but at the end you will be dropped to a linux command prompt.

      How I want you to key in the following.

      ip a s
      lspci -k -nn | grep -i net
      grep -i -e firm /var/log/syslog

      get a clear picture of all of the values and post it here.

      The first command will show us the network adapters
      The second command will show us the hardware ID of the network adapters
      The last command searches /var/syslog for any message that has firmware in the name.

      After you are done with this, delete the capture/deploy task from the fog server.

      posted in FOG Problems
      george1421G
      george1421
    • RE: iPXE fog boot menu error Could not boot: Results too large

      @Jias94 Hey no worries, I’ve created that error a few times myself so I had a good idea where to look. I’m glad you have it sorted out and can get back to imaging.

      posted in FOG Problems
      george1421G
      george1421