Posts made by Alistair

Alistair

Ignor the half finished sentence:

" Chad you said yourself " "

Alistair

Most of us like to continue with what we are most familiar with. I’m no exception.
I take warnings from others seriously. But Jaymes I think you are too quick to dismiss my own 9 years of experience in deploying XP in a domain environment. I’ve clearly demonstrated that sysprep was never “essential” for either Ghost or FOG XP deployments from and to identical hardware. So all the “warnings” I read in 2005 of the need to sysprep were not true for identical hardware. In the case of Win 8.1 today, sysprep may be essential, but maybe not on identical hardware again.

My hope today was that I could save time by just doing the same as I did before, only this time with SIDCHG instead of NewSid.
I like having the administrator profile already setup with mappings and shortcuts etc. (helpful but not essential)
For the first user login I don’t know how to get past the OOBE window and go straight to the classic windows login window with user, password and domain fields. (I know the answer file can get you past most, if not all, of these setup questions, but I don’t look forward to sorting all that out. Chad you said yourself "
I know there will be other issues related to sysprep that I will have to come to terms with. It all takes time, research and questions on forums. I am replacing the entire system, PCs, iPads, wireless access points, server etc. I only work 60%. $300 is a small amount to pay to avoid even more hassle and uncertainty.

Chad, I will only be using Win 8.1, 64 bit and Server 2012 64 bit, so your suggestion of active directory activation rather than KMS sounds better.

Jaymes, I have not heard of DeepFreeze. I’ll look into that.
Good advice when you write: “If you’re worried about the time it takes to get the answer file correct, set up a virtual image and save some snapshots before you sysprep, that’s what I do, then I just revert back, and edit my file a bit, save and upload again.”

Alistair

Thanks Chad

Very interesting. If I am forced in the end to run with sysprep, I will definitely use your post as a guide.
But I’m still interested in this other alternative …
I am waiting for a response from the SIDCHG program designers on questions about KMS.
I’ll post any relevant info here.

Alistair

I should give some background to explain my comments and questions. I have been deploying XP images since 2005 until 2011 with Symantec Ghost corporate solution suite (Ghost console), and then with FOG since 2011. I have never used SYSPREP. I have always used either Ghostwalker or NewSID to change SID numbers straight after deployment. I have always used WSUS successfully by removing the WSUS id number (different from SID) from the registry from the master image just before cloning. This ensures that each new deployed PC will automatically create its own unique WSUS id. Naming of clients was always handled automatically by both Ghost console and later FOG with PXE client registration. You mentioned the “driver cache” - I will risk making a statement that may be wrong: the driver cache does not matter at all when I am deploying to PCs that have IDENTICAL hardware to the master image PC. The above concrete experience shows that sysprep is not necessary for the correct functioning of WSUS or for the successful deployment of ninety-five XP clients on one LAN. I don’t know about win 7 or win 8.

Why don’t I use sysprep on XP?

it resets the administrator account which I want to retain with my settings
it gives the first time user the “OOBE” Out of Box Experience startup choices which I don’t want. My master image is already exactly what I want, I don’t want it changed, or new profiles created.
I would need to learn how to use answer files etc…
I think there was another reason also, but I can’t remember now

With regard to KMS, which I hope to use, I suspect Jaymes that you were correct in your first post when you said that unique SID numbers (and perhaps WSUS ids) were needed for KMS to work.

I’ve just discovered a shareware program called SIDCHG (32 and 64 bit) which does the same job as NewSID and also changes the WSUS SID as well. It works with Win 8.1. It costs $300 for a 500 user educational site license. I’m very tempted to take the chance of using that instead of SYSPREP.

Alistair

By the way, that photo of you and your daughter is fantastic. Brings back memories.

Alistair

Jaymes, thanks for your input. You say that a UID is needed for KMS to work.
If that is true then I am forced to use MAK activation, because I don’t want to use sysprep.

By UID I assume you mean local machine SID and not domain machine SID.

I have not managed to find verification of this need for unique local machine SID on the internet.

I am very confused about this because Mark Russinovich says “neither he nor the Windows security team could think of any situation where duplicate SIDs could cause any problems” He and Microsoft then discontinued NewSid which only changes the local SID.
Logically this also implies that sysprep is also not needed to change the local machine SID, if duplicate SIDs don’t matter in a domain environment.

Alistair

Thanks Steve.

Alistair

Thanks Michael, a response first to your 2nd post - I had planned to install “Classic Shell” which gives an XP or Win 7 desktop and is also free. I had not heard of “Start Menu 8” I have no real world experience with either. I just hope they don’t give problems with group policies coming from Server 2012.

Now to FOG. Thanks for that informative list.

In all my Ghost imaging with 2000 and XP over the last 10 years and FOG imaging over the last 2 years I have never used sysprep. In fact I don’t know how to use it. I’m HOPING I won’t need it. I have heard from a number of people on this forum that they have successfully imaged without sysprep. Do you have any comments on that?

Interesting to note the WINLOAD.EXE failure. Doesn’t that reveal some kind of bug in FOG?

I was planning/hoping I could do what I have done before with XP:

go to each PC and use PXE to register each PC with FOG (only 50 clients)
upload image of master PC (removed from domain)
roll out image to pre registered clients and allow FOG to both give them their names and join them to domain.

What do you think?

(I used to use NewSID to change SID numbers on every client before joining them to the domain - until I read the following:
After NewSID’s retirement, Microsoft engineer [URL=‘http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Russinovich’]Mark Russinovich[/URL] posted an article on his blog explaining the retirement of the NewSID stating that neither he nor the Windows security team could think of any situation where duplicate SIDs could cause any problems at all, against commonly accepted wisdom. On November 1, 2009, Microsoft added the following to the NewSID download page: Note: NewSID will be retired from Sysinternals on November 2, 2009.)

Alistair

You guys who develop FOG have done a great job. Thankyou.
I have let all my Symantec Ghost licenses lapse. FOG is now my only way of rolling out images.
And that’s why I am nervous now. I just wanted to let the developers know, for what it’s worth.

I’m sure there are many schools like us who are using XP right up to its “end of life” on April 4, 2014.
Many will need to invest in new or newer hardware and want to run with Win 8.1.
But new systems often can’t be installed the day before. Our deadline is our winter holidays in February (Norway).

I am nervously waiting for 0.33, hoping for 2 things:

1 - that it will come out in early January in time for me to setup a new 0.33 FOG server and image/rollout Win 8.1 on new hardware before the February school winter holidays. I’m sure there are others in a similar situation in different countries.

2 - that most bugs/issues with FOG, Win 8.1 or new hardware will have been resolved.

As I am not very knowledgeable about linux I can’t really beta test FOG.

How much will financial donations help in speeding up the finishing of 0.33.

Alistair

FOG is now working. I can deploy an image. The “missing partition file” was due to a very unfortunate mistake I made when I accidently bumped the keyboard and changed the name of the “d1p1.img” file on fog. I changed it back to what I thought was correct, but it was wrong. I uploaded a 2nd image and saw my mistake in the naming.

So to complete this thread I will conclude that FOG 0.32 did not work under Ubuntu 12.04 because of TFTP issues.
It now appears to function as normal under 10.04. (I have only deployed to one client so far. Shall deploy to 16 clients today.)

I would still like to know why while it was creating the image it said “Available space for image = 986 MiB” when it was in fact 60 GiB.

Alistair

It also says partition file missing.

Alistair

OK I have now installed version 10.04 LTS and fog again. Now I can upload an image to FOG, but I cannot successfully roll it out to another host. When I start the deploy, the new host starts up, goes into PXE, tries to download the correct image, but says numerous things are wrong. HP 7100 bios not supported, cannot read certain sectors in partition (which partition), then aborts the download (which never actually starts) and reboots the PC. Everything goes by so fast. I tried to slow it down by using Pause/Break key, but that did not stop the text to give me time to write it all down.

I ran the debug deploy. Used all the options there. Everything checked out ok.

Tried the same deploy to another identical host with the same result. So it is not a local disk partition problem.
I have always chosen the option “One disk and partitions - cannot be resized”

When I uploaded the original image it said the image was 13 GiB, and no compression.
But the final image was only 7 GiB.
Also while it was creating the image it said “Available space for image = 986 MiB”
That is simply wrong. I had 60 GB free on the FOG server.
There was no error message in making the image. Everything went perfectly.

Totally confused and have 2 classrooms waiting for 30 computers.

Alistair

If I have to wipe Ubuntu 12.04 lts and install 11, it feels like such a backward step.
Apart from all the extra work, Ubuntu 11 is only supported for another year I think whereas Ubuntu 12 is supported until 2007!!

I’m just surprised that there are no bright linux boys on the planet who have managed to identify and fix this bug.

Alistair

Here are the contents of a conversation I have had with Eclat2k:

[LIST=1]
[*][INDENT]Hi Eclat2k

thanks for your response.

I know many people have experienced the 1st problem I wrote about, that is TFTP … timeout on the clients.
But no-one has had my 2nd problem that shows up on the Dashboard when uploading an image:
“Unable to start task - Unable to connect to TFTP server”

Have you really had this 2nd problem?

Alistair[/INDENT]
[URL=‘http://fogproject.org/forum/members/alistair.1830/’]Alistair[/URL], [URL=‘http://fogproject.org/forum/conversations/unable-to-connect-to-tftp-server-message-on-dashboard-when-uploading-an-image.107/message?message_id=385’]Friday at 12:48 PM[/URL] [URL=‘http://fogproject.org/forum/conversations/unable-to-connect-to-tftp-server-message-on-dashboard-when-uploading-an-image.107/report?message_id=385’]Report[/URL]
[URL=‘http://fogproject.org/forum/conversations/unable-to-connect-to-tftp-server-message-on-dashboard-when-uploading-an-image.107/reply?m=385’]Reply[/URL]
[*]
[SIZE=4][B][URL=‘http://fogproject.org/forum/members/eclat2k.2084/’]Eclat2k[/URL] [I]New Member[/I][/B][/SIZE]
[INDENT]Yes, and the problem was the password. I restore the password for the user fog in ubuntu (the linux user, don’t mysql user) and I used this same password (encrypted with FogCrypt.exe) in the tftpd conf file, and in the fog options, and this problem disappeared.

I’d install other pc with ubuntu 11 and fog 0.32 and restore your settings.

In Ubuntu 12 I had a lot of problems with TFPTD, problems with the DHCP, etc… and with no sense, with 11 seems that works fine.[/INDENT]
[URL=‘http://fogproject.org/forum/members/eclat2k.2084/’]Eclat2k[/URL], [URL=‘http://fogproject.org/forum/conversations/unable-to-connect-to-tftp-server-message-on-dashboard-when-uploading-an-image.107/message?message_id=390’]Friday at 4:53 PM[/URL] [URL=‘http://fogproject.org/forum/conversations/unable-to-connect-to-tftp-server-message-on-dashboard-when-uploading-an-image.107/report?message_id=390’]Report[/URL]
[URL=‘http://fogproject.org/forum/conversations/unable-to-connect-to-tftp-server-message-on-dashboard-when-uploading-an-image.107/reply?m=390’]Reply[/URL]
[*]
[SIZE=4][B][URL=‘http://fogproject.org/forum/members/alistair.1830/’]Alistair[/URL] [I]New Member[/I][/B][/SIZE]
[INDENT]ok thanks. I’ll wait until next monday or tuesday. If I don’t get any other responses I will install version 11 as you did. Many thanks for your advice.

Strange that no-one has found the source of this TFTP problem yet.[/INDENT]
[/LIST]

Alistair

vsftpd is running

Alistair

Just to clarify:

FOG 0.32 is newly installed on its own PC under Ubuntu 12.03
Everything is new. I have never used FOG before.
I can register hosts without a problem via PXE from the host itself.
I can log in to the Dashboard from my own PC.
When I try to “Upload” an image (my first time) I see:
“Unable to start task - Unable to connect to TFTP server”

Alistair

I forgot to say that I have attempted the above using the management dash under firefox on my own PC over the school LAN and locally on the FOG server itself using firefox and [url]http://localhost/fog/management[/url].

Both give the same result.

Alistair

I have just installed FOG 0.32 on Ubuntu 12.03 LTS and have over 60 hosts registered via PXE boot menu.
I have 2 problems, both TFTP related. I have found a temporary workaround solution for the 1st but not the 2nd.

The first problem occurs when the FOG server is first turned on. If I then turn on a host, it will obtain a DHCP address and then wait forever for a connection to TFTP on FOG. "TFTP … " I found a post on your forum which has given me a workaround which is the following:

sudo stop tftpd-hpa
sudo start tftpd-hpa

Then I have no problem registering hosts.

The 2nd problem is when I try to take my first image of a client which has already been removed from the domain.
When I click on Upload image I get the message:

“Unable to start task - Unable to connect to TFTP server”
(despite having already used sudo stop tftpd-hpa, sudo start tftpd-hpa)

I know very little about linux, so please treat me like a novice.

Here are some further details about my setup.

The FOG server is called FOG-Server and has 1 user called “Fog”
(I read somewhere that a username of “fog” can create a problem.)
FOG has a fixed ip address of 10.0.0.80
All host use DHCP from a windows 2003 domain controller
DHCP scope 66 = 10.0.0.80
DHCP scope 67 = pxelinux.0
Created a DNS record on DC - “FOG-server” 10.0.0.80

I desperately want a solution to this or I will have to purchase 30 more Ghost licenses and revert to Ghost, the last thing I want to do.