Posts made by dholtz-docbox

@Wayne-Workman : Awesome! Yeah, I didn’t expect a date; I was just curious given, as you said, being in RC mode, but wasn’t sure how far into the candidate process the team was given the frequency of candidate releases. Which is always; did they go into candidate mode too soon, or is their DEV team really cranking that hard. I guess it’s the latter though; that’s very exciting to hear! You guys have a solid DEV team over there

Awesome. Thanks for clarifying everything; sorry for being so explicit, I am multitasking a lot while trying to finalize this for our next release coming up, and it’s easier to ask some questions than trial-by-fire it myself at this moment.

-Dustin

@Joe-Schmitt : Okay, that’s what I thought, regarding tray. I wasn’t sure for the other setting, https I presume. Does it default to “0” as well, unless specified via. its switch?

I will look into updating the system now. Unfortunately our update process, given the mirror, takes a few steps to do so. That said, when do you project there being an official release? At the rate your team deploys RC’s, I am not sure what we will do once we go into production with this system in the next coming months.

-Dustin

Just to clarify on one piece real quick, for the options that specify to include something, like tray, do they default to “no” when using switches? I know tray isn’t used in Linux, unless that changed, so it’s moot. I was just curious since they didn’t specify defaults, if they defaulted to disabled/false/no.

Edit> I see when using MSI switches, it specifies the default and allows you to set tray and other binary settings, but does not provide a method for specifying on/off for tray and others in Linux. Is this just because they aren’t used, so it doesn’t matter one-way-or-another?

@Joe-Schmitt : Yeah, I was glad to see that switch was just another word for what I know as command parameters. Is “switch” the preferred verbiage here, for my own knowledge? I am but a fledgling still in the world of… everything you guys do, I guess, heh. So much more to learn…

-Dustin

@Joe-Schmitt : Awesome! Thanks for linking that; it sounds like it’s all I need, if I am following everything. Let me give it a better read though.

-Dustin

PS > I might have said the wrong word, but I have no desire to overwrite any functionality in how the FOG Client does its business - why would I. I just want to make sure machines run through this process have the client installed with no manual intervention, and right now it appeared to me that the only way I could go through installing this was manually.

@Joe-Schmitt

Regarding point #2, I believe we are misunderstanding each other, but we are saying the same thing. What alarmed me was Wayne’s statement that the FOG Client automatically updates itself; what I missed was the one word he had in bold, where it only applies based on my server. Whoopsie…

Yes, the config.json was what I wanted the installed to use, but it ignores the file from what I can see. I am also not sure what these switches are. Is it something handled by mono, or is it just another name for a command parameter? I don’t mind passing this information along, I just didn’t think I could - so I was looking to do something similar to your other installation process.

-Dustin

PS> I have tried booting into other options as well…

• GRUB => Launches; hits “PXE scan… Starting cmain()”; machine reboot loops
• REFIND_EFI => Hangs…
• EXIT => Chainload error

Edit> Regarding GRUB, I have a read a few things regarding grub2 vs grub legacy. Linux appears to use grub2 by default; while I don’t know how yet, should I be looking into switching over to grub legacy?

The other odd thing I have noted, and maybe this is business as usual with LVM installations, but there are additional Ubuntu boot options after installing LVM. I have had this underlying feeling that these shouldn’t exist and are a symptom of how GRUB is handled? I am kind of hitting the end of my rope in terms of what I know and have no tried - as far as what I currently know. I just know that I have had success in various forms, and am trying to nail down the right configuration for what we are using.

Regards,

-Dustin

In short, I was looking to capture a configuration file and supply it to the installer, similarly to how the .fogsettings file can be supplied to the servers installfog.sh script, when the -y command is passed to it, for automation. It has a settings file in /opt/fog-service, so I wasn’t sure if I could use it the same way.

I am not too concerned about getting the latest installer, as every client just does a wget on the FOG server for whatever version of the installer it has. It’s actually preferred that nothing automatically updates itself, unless it can do so independently of needing to update the other FOG services. I imagine the concerns here are obvious, if justified.

At the end of the day, I have Puppet automating the server’s installation as needed. It would be nice to have Puppet automate the client’s installation too. Which doesn’t seem possible the way I thought. What would the preferred Linux way of handling this? Can I do something similar with Mono?

And to your point, ultimately, it’s not huge. This will just aid in fresh installations more than anything, but it’s a process I would like to get out of the developers hands if possible. For the first pass, I can just manually do this and capture the image.

-Dustin

Server

• FOG Version: 1.3.0-RC-13
• OS: Ubuntu 14.04.5 - Server

Client

• Service Version: 0.11.5
• OS: Ubuntu 14.04.5 - Server

Description

I have gone through a lot of variations, but the iteration time in finding the right setup is killing me at the moment. I wanted to reach out and ask the FOG team what they might suggest…

I have mixed input on whether or not LVM is supported as of 1.3.0-RC-13, so that would be first question - whether capturing and booting into LVM is supported, at all, currently?

Further, I was curious what impact the selected image had on the host when booting into PXE with no tasks. At the moment, I am having difficulties getting a simple test off the ground - which is frustrating given the level of success I have had on-and-off so far. Maybe I am missing something here, but my current process for creating my starting, golden, image is as follows…

1. Boot into Ubuntu 14.04.5 installer via. USB
2. Install Ubuntu 14.04.5 Server w/ default LVM partitions
   2a. Machine has two (2) disks, /dev/sda is left alone, where /dev/sdb has LVM installed on it
3. Finalize installation and boot into disk
4. Log into http://{server}/fog/management and configure host; where host settings are…

• Primary Disk => ‘/dev/sdb’
• Bios Exit Type => ‘SANBOOT’
• EFI Exit Type => ‘EXIT’

5. Log into …/fog/management and configure image; where image settings are…

• Operating System => ‘Linux - (50)’
• Image Path => ‘core’
• Image Type => ‘Single Disk - Resizable - (1)’
• Partition => ‘Everything - (1)’
• Compression => 6
• Protected => false
• Image Enabled => true
• Replicate? => true

6. Assign core image to new host
7. Reboot host machine w/ PXE enabled

From this point forward, the system never boots from SAN device.

I have found very-very little resources regarding the booting issue - from SAN device - and even less information regarding FOG and LVM.

At this point, I think the FOG server is setup and configured correctly, but I am having a bit of difficulty in setting up the host so that it works nicely with the server - especially when handling LVM.

Another thing to note. So… I can capture the machine, using these configurations no problem. The system picks up the task and performs the clone no problem. However, upon deploying this image, I lose the logical drives. Not only do I lose the logical drives, I can now boot into the primary disk using the assigned parameter /dev/sdb. I believe a lot of my issues at this point come from not understanding how to properly setup the system prior to connecting it to FOG.

I wanted to just open a chat with someone and ask this, but I figured it would be more formal to go this route for starters.

Thanks!

-Dustin

Is there a way to automate the FOG Client installation, similar to the FOG Server’s installation? I have tried passing it the .fogsettings, thinking it would source some of the same settings from this - to no avail. I then noticed, if I manually enter in the pieces of information, that it does not persist on a subsequent install - in the event it needed to be updated, similarly to the server.

This leads me to this final question, which is, what would the best practice be for automatically configuring FOG Client for distribution? Moving down the road, we won’t have the luxury of being able to manually feed this into the installer, and I am finding it difficult to find the right resources for what FOG Client can do.

Thanks!

-Dustin

This makes a lot of sense. I have seen the FOG Client referenced numerous times and thought it to be the web portal this whole time! Thanks for pointing me in this direction though! This is exactly what I wanted, before I went and did a whole bunch of unnecessary work, heh.

-Dustin

Server

• FOG Version: 1.3.0 RC-11
• OS: Ubuntu 14.04

Description

What is the preferred method for handling something like user and host name setup, post-imaging? We would like the systems to have their user and host name set to the name assigned in the FOG hosts table if possible.

At first, I was considering using the post download scripts again, but thought I should look to see what tools exist - as I feel like this is a common situation. While looking around for ways to handle this, I came across SysPrep and FOG Prep. I haven’t had the time to research either option much yet, but are either of these the right solution for handling this?

I am operating on a pretty tight window, so I apologize if this question was a bit hasty. I just wanted to get a leg up in best determining the direction I should take this, whether someone shares some wisdom or I dig it up first. Everything so far has been working great though, so I don’t think getting this piece to function will be too tough.

Thanks!

-Dustin

Everything here works now though - including EXIT where I need it. Thanks again.

-Dustin

Okay… I may have solved this at the end of the day, finally.

I believe it was a sequence of a few items not matching up once I tested certain phases. In the end, I had to switch the boot priority so that the drive with the OS had priority over the data drive. I tried this earlier, but it was after already moving past SANBOOT and when looking into EXIT as an option instead. Now that I have corrected the drive and changed the boot priority, SANBOOT is functioning as intended. I will do a few more tests before I officially resolve this, so I will post back by tomorrow morning on my results - time is limited today.

-Dustin

I have new errors after reformatting the machine in question and starting over. To iterate, the machine has two drives, is running Ubuntu Server 14.04, and is a LVM installation. The first drive is ignored, so I am using Single Disk - Resizable, setting its Primary Disk to /dev/sdb. Last, the host is set to exit its BIOS w/ type SANBOOT.

If there is a task to capture an image, there is no issue from what I can tell. The machine boots into Partimage and begins cloning /dev/sdb without issues. However, when I go to boot into the system w/o tasks, the system NEVER boots properly.

So… the new error. Upon reformatting, I switched the BIOS exit type back to SANDISK - after exhausting the initial selections prior. This time when I boot into the system, I am prompted with the following messages…

Booting from SAN device 0x80
Boot from SAN device 0x80 failed: Exec format error (http://ipxe.org/2e852001)
Could not boot: Exec format error (http://ipxe.org/2e852001)
Could not boot: Exec format error (http://ipxe.org/2e852001)

Looking into what this error means, so far I am reading that it regards the kernel. This doesn’t make sense to me. I am not sure why the system can’t just resume its boot process, I guess; or what the impediment is - when using BIOS exit type = ‘EXIT’ - if that is the standard course of action.

-Dustin

I tried playing around with other types, and none appear to work. The machine uses GRUB boot loader, so I thought I would try to boot into GRUB, but it leaves me in the GRUB interface where I appear to be able to do nothing. I am not quite sure how to configure this so that it boots into the drive directly when no tasks are present.

-Dustin

@Tom-Elliott : I unfortunately have no errors in my /var/log/apache2/error.log file after cleaning it and running through the process again. Would they be generated somewhere else?

-Dustin