Posts made by Bill Foskett

Troy, MI USA

My FOG server is in a Microsoft Hyper-V session on a IBM x3560. Hyper-V session is running Ubuntu 11.10 and running FOG version 0.32.

Host Server Specs:
2x 8core Xeon processor @ 2.25 ghz
14GB RAM
Boot HDD - 2x 72GB mirrored
Data HDD - 12x 1TB, RAID 5 and formatted = 10TB usable space.
23-slot LTO4 backup tape loader
Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 x64

Note: I an still in the testing phase of this setup and I’m sure that I’ve left out a lot of critical details including the fact that the main server needs to have the multisite patch applied. I hope this helps some people out.

A little back story on where I work. I work for a company that has 6 major offices and a few other smaller office across North America all connected to a Sprint MPLS network at speeds from 1.5 MBPS to 10MBPS, the average of the major offices being 3MBPS. We needed a solution by which we could deploy a universal system image to computers in these multiple sites. That’s when I came across FOG. The product worked beautifully within my own site but was horrible when I teied to do anything across the WAN segment. I am now in the process of testing the setup to use our DFS replica that we already have in place to distribute the system images across sites.

Here is roughly what went in to getting our setup where it is now:

1. [SIZE=3]Install OS (I used Ubuntu 11.10 x86)[/SIZE]
   [SIZE=3]2. Download FOG installer package and extract. [/SIZE]
2. [SIZE=3]Edit install script to enable TFTP and PXE as described here:[/SIZE]
   [INDENT=1][SIZE=3]a. [URL=‘http://www.fogproject.org/wiki/index.php?title=Multiple_TFTP_servers’][U][COLOR=#0000ff]http://www.fogproject.org/wiki/index.php?title=Multiple_TFTP_servers[/COLOR][/U][/URL][/SIZE][/INDENT]
   [INDENT=1][SIZE=3]b. [SIZE=3]Do NOT set up the synchronization settings as described on page. DFS handles that procedure.[/SIZE][/SIZE][/INDENT]
   [SIZE=3]4. [SIZE=3]Run install script and install software as storage node[/SIZE][/SIZE]
   [SIZE=3]5. [SIZE=3]Add line to /etc/fstab to link storage node’s /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg folder directly to main server’s /tftpboot/pxelinx.cfg folder for real-time access.[/SIZE][/SIZE]
   [INDENT=1][SIZE=3]a. Fstab> 10.8.60.10:/tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg nfs ro 0 0[/SIZE][/INDENT]
3. [SIZE=3]Create scrip to run at boot to link system to datastores on DFS. (adjust as needed)[/SIZE]
   [INDENT=1][SIZE=3]a. [SIZE=3]Link script to /etc/rc2.d . Script includes the following:[/SIZE][/SIZE][/INDENT]
   [INDENT=2][SIZE=3]mount.cifs //yourdomain.com/FOG/Images /images -o username=user,password=[I]password[/I],domain=yourdomain[/SIZE][/INDENT]
   [INDENT=2][SIZE=3]mount.cifs //yourdomain.com/FOG/FOG /tftpboot/fog –o …[/SIZE][/INDENT]
   7.Configure storage node in web interface of main server.

After all this the configuration looks something like this:
[ATTACH=full]56[/ATTACH]

[url=“/_imported_xf_attachments/0/56_FOG with DFS.PNG?:”]FOG with DFS.PNG[/url]

Any updates to the release of 0.33? After evaluating 0.32 at my company and getting extremely favorable results, I’m waiting to take what I’ve learned from 0.32 and apply to 0.33 and invest in a major multisite system imagin rollout.

Will the “patch” for multisite storage nodes across WAN links be included with 0.33. That is a “MUST HAVE” feature. A colleague and I have worked the existing software to allow TFTP/PXE in multiple sites and leverage Windows DFS to replicate the images.

Keep up the outstanding work.