X-Posted to linuxadmin

So basically i have FOG setup to currently boot windows mdt isos.

Ive been working the last few months via trial and error to get this working for Ubuntu.

Ubuntu fully works properly via vmware virtual machines because built-in network adapters are no problem.

When i go to take the public initrd and vmlinuz files from the public ISO and boot them to the usb-c adapters on the laptops. 2 things happen

no actual interfaces are found

because of this its unable to download the iso from the local server

So my first thought is “oh well seems like drivers are missing”

I then went ahead and tried to create my own initrd that includes the module (r8152) this didnt work

I threw every module into /etc/initramfs-tools/modules and updated the initrd file. This worked The network adapter was able to get an ip address

the real problem

https://imgur.com/a/FabDD3j

“gave up waiting for root file system” “/dev/ram0 doesnt exist”

This is the part i cant get past. As you can see /dev/ram0 exists, i dont see why its not mounting the (initrd?) file system on the ramdisk?

Im not the most experienced in linux, but i feel like im missing something here, i cant be the only one who is pxe booting ubuntu laptops under 20.04

side note: I should add the mini.iso that previously existed under 18.04 is not being distributed for 20.04 which the laptop actually booted properly. I may end up using this and upgrading to 20.04 once fully installed, but i really want to do it this way.

Another way is to just capture an image which is quite simple, i want to stay the path of “thin imaging”.

Any help is appreciated

WOW that solved it.
changed it from tftp to http and instantly see gigabit transfers.
thanks for your help @george1421
also noteworthy to make sure your files are moved over to the default http directory of /var/www/html

So were still running testing and we are trying to get laptops to boot with a highly customized version of windows 10 created by MDT.

This actually works out amazingly. Not needing to use MDT

For testing reasons our setup is a HP elitebook g4 with windows 10. The Fog server is a centos box installed under hyperv. The intention here is to airgap the PXE/network boot infrastructure from the rest of the network. Also for portability so we can easily copy the setup over to our remote office. So Effectively our setup is a point-to-point network since we also have tested the below with directly connected cables, temporarily removing unmanaged switches between the 2 devices.

With that background set. heres the actual issue.

We create the 300MB windows.iso file and ftp it over to the fog server following theese instructions: https://forums.fogproject.org/topic/10944/using-fog-to-pxe-boot-into-your-favorite-installer-images/17

The PXE kernel (ipxe.efi) transfer completely fine. The Fog menu shows up and the mdt option loads fine. it can find all the files required.

The first 2 files transfer fine probably because theyre so small. But when it gets to “boot.wim” file the file transfer speed maxes out at 8mbps. We can see this using Centos’s “nload package”

Things we have tried:

• test bandwidth with “iperf” shows the normal 1gbps on a point-to point link
• change cables
• change hosting laptop from a hp elitebook g4 to a g3 and switching out hyperv to vmware workstation player.
• change hosting to an esxi server
• ive tried changing kernels, but it doesnt seem like any of the ones provided other than ipxe.efi actually work for uefi-only machines, which is what we are booting.

Heres some weird quirks too

• different devices have different pxe speeds. An HP 1040 elitebook x360 g5 runs at 8mbps MS surface book runs at 30mbps, the previously specified g3 runs at 50mbps and VM’s running alongside any of the aforementioned hypervisors run at 100mbps.
• i tried setting up ubuntu following this: https://forums.fogproject.org/topic/10944/using-fog-to-pxe-boot-into-your-favorite-installer-images/6 same stuff

Since the only issue is network speeds here, im close to saying well just deal with the files loading for 10 minutes before we can get into the MDT software.

So Im pretty much all out of ideas at this point.