Finally have some success!

I think it’s been a mixture of things that have made it work this time compared to other attempts. I just tried with ipxe7156.efi instead of ipxe.efi which is what I was trying the other day (I know I previously used ipxe7156.efi with no success) and I was able to quick register it and begin the capture process, rather interesting that it was able to do the quick register and create it’s own host kernel argument of the - has_usb_nic=1 without me having to put that in which is nice. Also had a dumb switch in the middle along with doing more updates so I’m not sure what part has fixed it for me but it appears to be working!

Process for mine which is basically very similar to Scott’s well written instructions but will add everything I’ve done in case it helps someone in the future:

DHCP Server Settings
067 - ipxe7156.efi

Fog Client Version
Upgraded to FOG 1.4.0-RC-4
Upgraded Kernel Versions so both bzImage and bzImage32 versions are 4.10.9

Connection Setup
Network > dumb switch > Microsoft Surface Ethernet to USB Adapter (model:1663) > Surface 3/4 (4 I’ve got to the quick register page, haven’t tested further yet).
Left Surface keyboard plugged in

Surface BIOS Settings
Turn Trusted Platform Module off
Turn Secure Boot off
Change boot so network is allowed rather than just SSD - Network > SSD

Choose whether to quick register a client or capture/deploy an image.

Once all the above is set up then it’s basically how you do any other FOG image apart from having to disconnect and reconnect the USB network adapter.

Steps -

1. Ensure setup is plugged in as mentioned in the connection setup above
2. Hold volume down, press power on and hold volume down until red Surface screen appears then let go
3. Surface should start booting into fog
4. When prompted to unplug USB Nic, plug back in and hit the enter on Surface keyboard
5. If you’re quick registering, you should be able to select that option. If you’re capturing/deploying, it should automatically begin that process as you’ve set in the task manager on your FOG system.

Thanks for your assistance @Scott-Adams @george1421 @Tom-Elliott @Wayne-Workman

Thinking aloud, I suppose there isn’t really a way to register all my Surface machines because since I’m using the USB adapters and they’re the device that contains the MAC address (as I found out when I tried register the Surface 4 only to find it was listed as the Surface 3 model I did the quick register for before). Not really the end of the world if that’s the case as I can still create the images required and then just deploy it to the Surface as I wish.

Out of interest Fry, looking at the image you’ve attached in the OP, is your surface still attached to the docking station as the charger looks like the fat one for the docking station rather then just the power lead which is much thinner? Just curious as to whether having that disconnected makes any difference as it might be trying to read the docking station USB interfaces instead o the one directly connected to the surface?

@Joe-Schmitt said in Adding Machine to Domain using Active Directory:

@dylan123 said in Adding Machine to Domain using Active Directory:

So I’ve attempted to deploy an image onto the domain

Images should never be pre-joined to the domain, Active Directory is fundamentally incompatible with handling that scenario. Either use setupcomplete.cmd in sysprep to join the domain, or the FOG Client.

Yeah wasn’t the first thing I tried, more was testing it just to see if it made a difference.

Wasn’t aware the FOG Client was required to make the active directory feature work. Have since installed and tested, can confirm it worked.

Thanks for your help Joe.

@fry_p So if I’m understanding correctly, you’ve got your Surface with a USB hub directly connected to that. From that you’ve plugged in your surface adapter to one of those ports? Kind of makes sense with it struggling given it’s trying to get the IP from the other adapter.

I think to get this working together you’d want turn your surface on with the USB hub connected. CMD > getmac to figure out the mac address for both the HUB ethernet and the surface adapter. Then you can open up the fog dashboard, create a new host, manually add both mac addresses (making the surface adapter the primary one). Then under the FOG_KERNEL_ARGS section, add has_usb_nic=1. I imagine the next time you try to image it with all of that connected it should work.

With all of that said, do you really need to use the USB hub? Can you not just plug the surface usb > Ethernet adapter in directly? I haven’t done a full test with my 4 yet, but I know with the 3, the surface keyboard worked fine plugged in so I didn’t really have any need for the usb hub.

So with the ‘manage-bde -off C:’ command, are people then turning that back on once the image is created/deployed? Or given Bitlocker isn’t on, not bothering?

I suppose it’s made me think I should potentially look at turning bitlocker on for some staff members which will probably just be a manual process, but just wondering if I should then be turning the above command on when I do it.

@Sebastian-Roth said in Very slow cloning speed on specific model:

@darkxeno @dylan123 @Middle @oleg-knysh Build is done. Anyone keen to test?

sudo -i
cd /var/www/html/fog/service/ipxe
wget https://fogproject.org/kernels/bzImage-4.9.51
wget https://fogproject.org/inits/init-4.9.x.xz
chown apache:apache bzImage-4.9.51 init-4.9.x.xz

Thanks @Sebastian-Roth , I’ve just got back from leave. Ended up just manually setting up the device and don’t have another one to test with unfortunately. If I do, I’ll give this a test and see if it makes a difference. Thanks again for your assistance.

@Sebastian-Roth said in Very slow cloning speed on specific model:

Is you image set to “Partclone zstd” or “Partclone grip”??

Can confirm I’m using partclone gzip

@Sebastian-Roth said in Very slow cloning speed on specific model:

@dylan123 Now that you have downloaded the kernel make sure it’s in the right location (/var/www/html/fog/service/ipxe/), then edit the host’s settings in the web UI and set bzImage-4.9.51 as Host Kernel. Schedule a task, boot the device and pay attention to where it says bzImage-4.9.51... ok.

Thanks Seb.

Had some issues when I attempted to run the image.

Just showing I’ve got the files in the right area -

Have put the argument in -

When it boots, It says the Kernel is old and then it goes to this -

It then just counts up from /dev/nvme0n1p2, 3, etc

Without the init argument I get a different kind of issue which ends in -

Fatal : Kernel too old
Kernal panic - not syncing: Attempting to kill init! exitcode=0x00007f00

kernel Offset: disabled
—[ end Kernel panic - not syncing: Attempting to kill init! exitcode=0x00007f00

I’ve only got one more machine to go so I might just be better doing this one from scratch but figured I’d mention it anyways as I’m sure someone else will likely have a similar issue and if it’s something I can fix in the next couple of days I’ll do it that way before manually setting it up.

@Sebastian-Roth said in Very slow cloning speed on specific model:

@Duncan Just updated the kernel in https://fogproject.org/kernels/bzImage-4.9.51

Please re-download and try again.

I’ve been having a similar issue as the OP with one of these images. I’ve updated my fog to the latest version and got the latest kernel but I suppose that it doesn’t necessarily mean it gets the older ones.

I’ve ssh into my Fog environment, ran a command to download the kernel however I’m not sure what to do with it after that point?

@george1421 said in Database Connection Unavailable:

@dylan123 I was just thinking about it on the way into the office this AM. Being out of space on the root partition would keep mysql from starting. I’ve done it my self. Now that you restored it from backup that evidence is kind of gone. But if you issue a df -h lets see what your free space is now?

Here’s the result of that -

I’m not sure which of the outputs the database sits on to know whether it’s out of space or not.

I still have a backup of where it doesn’t seem to work as my first restore had the same issue so I can bring that back temporarily to do some testing/troubleshooting to try pin it down further.

@Sebastian-Roth said in Database Connection Unavailable:

@dylan123 What about the error logs??

If I remember correctly I did reset my VM to an earlier state as well just to get rid of the issue. But I’d really be interested to know how this happens. I find it really strange.

If I run cat /var/log/mysql/log.error I still get a no result return. Running journalctl -xe doesn’t show up any of the errors it previously was, it ends with ‘the start-up result is done.’

@dylan123 said in Database Connection Unavailable:

I’m trying to restore from a VM took 37 days ago, hopefully that does the trick… Will report back.

Just confirming that this backup worked thankfully so that’s a good result.

Thanks for the time and efforts as always guys, much appreciated!

@Sebastian-Roth I gave it a crack but not luck. Well it seemed to get rid of the permission errors but I just got generic failed to start -

– The result is failed.
Oct 29 19:19:24 Fog sudo[1883]: pam_unix(sudo:session): session closed for user
Oct 29 19:19:24 Fog systemd[1]: mysql.service: Unit entered failed state.
Oct 29 19:19:24 Fog systemd[1]: mysql.service: Failed with result ‘exit-code’.
Oct 29 19:19:24 Fog systemd[1]: mysql.service: Service hold-off time over, sched
Oct 29 19:19:24 Fog systemd[1]: Stopped MySQL Community Server.
– Subject: Unit mysql.service has finished shutting down

I’m trying to restore from a VM took 37 days ago, hopefully that does the trick… Will report back.

@george1421 So gave it a restart and tried running the command again but it failed.

Result when running systemctl status mysql.service

Result when running journalctl -xe

The denied entries seem interesting, not that I know why they’d be getting denied but I imagine that might be the issue.

I get no return at all though when I run cat /var/log/mysql/error.log

Everything had been running fine for a couple of years so I’m confused at to what’s happened. Must have been an update it’s done by itself, just find it strange that restoring hasn’t worked.

@george1421 Hey George,

I assume the command should be systemctl?

When I changed it to that it is just blank until I quit out of it -

Running Ubuntu version 16.

@george1421 Hey George, see below for the outputs to your questions.

I’m not sure if the mariadb is separate to the mysql one or together? That’s what I get when I try to run the command though.

In terms of the log file, I’m seeing the below -

Cat seems to be the right command but doesn’t open anything when I run it?