Posts made by Alex Elkins

[quote=“Wayne Workman, post: 42371, member: 28155”]I updated my first post to point out some other issues.

Others would have to help you with the storage node questions, as I only use one FOG machine at one location currently.
But, I still think your best bet is putting in older machines at each location.[/quote]

Okay, I understand your suggestion. Wouldn’t moving the images from the master to the storage node still use up the same amount of bandwidth, but only one time (or however many times you push a new image to the storage node)?

E: Site-to-site VPN or what?

[quote=“Uncle Frank, post: 42366, member: 28116”]Possibly one of the most uncommon scenarios to use an imaging software like FOG over the internet but hey, up to you!

Do all the locations use private (e.g. 192.168.x.y or 10.x.y.z) or public IP adresses and do you have VPN tunnels set up between the sites?

Depending on what your answers are it would be just a piece of cake to use FOG within your organization OR you will have to go a very long way and first learn about a lot of others things before FOG will happen for you.[/quote]

The locations all use private IP addresses via NAT through the router…VPN tunnels are not set up between the sites.

E: Additionally, are there any better methods of doing this BESIDES putting a storage node at every location? Doing it over the internet is the only way I [I]thought[/I] there was, but if you know of something better, please advise!!

[quote=“Wayne Workman, post: 42363, member: 28155”]I’m going to take a stab at this question. I’ve been using FOG for about 2 months now, it’s working great.

So, you don’t want a storage node at each location because of cost.
My solution to that is to just put a storage node at each location.

It doesn’t need to be anything fancy. An old dual-core with a gigabit interface will get the job done just fine. You could even go with an old P4 with Hyper Threading. It’d be slower, but still.

So, my suggestion, is to put in older equipment as storage nodes. Hopefully you already have some older equipment laying around.

Others may reply with other ideas, but I think this would be better IMHO.[/quote]

The only equipment we have laying around (mostly) are computers that we use for backup in bad situations. I will speak with my manager about purchasing smaller stations to use for this.

I guess my biggest misunderstanding is how will I get those computers to connect to my FOG master to get an image? How will everything be connected?

Here’s what I’m thinking:

Master connects to storage nodes
Workstations talk with storage nodes
Master sends reimage request to storage node
Storage node reimages workstations

So, in essence, the storage node handles the PXE/TFTP portion on their end. The master and storage nodes just connect somehow to transfer their information, and I think that is where it gets muddy in my head.

Do the storage nodes handle the PXE/TFTP, or would that need pushed somewhere else? Also, the DHCP server at each location has no knowledge of the FOG master’s network…is that an issue?

Hello,

I recently was given the task of setting up remote imaging for an organization that has locations in Michigan, Ohio, and Florida. We have about 70 locations spread out among these states.

The locations in these states are >50 miles apart, and we cannot have a storage node in each location (too costly).

My question is: will FOG imaging be possible? The only connection the stores have to each other is the internet (no direct connections). There is a DHCP server at each location (router), but nothing besides that except for the target machines (1 to 3 target machines per location).

I understand how to set PXE as the first boot priority, but I am unsure as to how the computers will connect to the FOG master in our corporate location. It is my understanding that PXE likes to work over a local network instead of the internet.

If FOG will work, what sort of setup would I need?

[B]We understand that it will be very slow over the internet, but we do not care because it is saving us from driving 50-1000 miles every time a computer goes down.[/B]

I loosely worked with FOG during an internship and understand how to use it over a LAN, but not so much over the internet in such a broad area.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!

EDIT: To clarify, we have a corporate office where the FOG master will be, and ~70 remote locations which will have 1-3 target machines each. These locations cannot have a local storage node but do have DHCP servers. They are only connected to the corporate office over the internet (not on the same network, VPN, anything).