Best posts made by dylan123

Finally have some success!

I think it’s been a mixture of things that have made it work this time compared to other attempts. I just tried with ipxe7156.efi instead of ipxe.efi which is what I was trying the other day (I know I previously used ipxe7156.efi with no success) and I was able to quick register it and begin the capture process, rather interesting that it was able to do the quick register and create it’s own host kernel argument of the - has_usb_nic=1 without me having to put that in which is nice. Also had a dumb switch in the middle along with doing more updates so I’m not sure what part has fixed it for me but it appears to be working!

Process for mine which is basically very similar to Scott’s well written instructions but will add everything I’ve done in case it helps someone in the future:

DHCP Server Settings
067 - ipxe7156.efi

Fog Client Version
Upgraded to FOG 1.4.0-RC-4
Upgraded Kernel Versions so both bzImage and bzImage32 versions are 4.10.9

Connection Setup
Network > dumb switch > Microsoft Surface Ethernet to USB Adapter (model:1663) > Surface 3/4 (4 I’ve got to the quick register page, haven’t tested further yet).
Left Surface keyboard plugged in

Surface BIOS Settings
Turn Trusted Platform Module off
Turn Secure Boot off
Change boot so network is allowed rather than just SSD - Network > SSD

Choose whether to quick register a client or capture/deploy an image.

Once all the above is set up then it’s basically how you do any other FOG image apart from having to disconnect and reconnect the USB network adapter.

Steps -

1. Ensure setup is plugged in as mentioned in the connection setup above
2. Hold volume down, press power on and hold volume down until red Surface screen appears then let go
3. Surface should start booting into fog
4. When prompted to unplug USB Nic, plug back in and hit the enter on Surface keyboard
5. If you’re quick registering, you should be able to select that option. If you’re capturing/deploying, it should automatically begin that process as you’ve set in the task manager on your FOG system.

Thanks for your assistance @Scott-Adams @george1421 @Tom-Elliott @Wayne-Workman

Thinking aloud, I suppose there isn’t really a way to register all my Surface machines because since I’m using the USB adapters and they’re the device that contains the MAC address (as I found out when I tried register the Surface 4 only to find it was listed as the Surface 3 model I did the quick register for before). Not really the end of the world if that’s the case as I can still create the images required and then just deploy it to the Surface as I wish.

Out of interest Fry, looking at the image you’ve attached in the OP, is your surface still attached to the docking station as the charger looks like the fat one for the docking station rather then just the power lead which is much thinner? Just curious as to whether having that disconnected makes any difference as it might be trying to read the docking station USB interfaces instead o the one directly connected to the surface?

@Joe-Schmitt said in Adding Machine to Domain using Active Directory:

@dylan123 said in Adding Machine to Domain using Active Directory:

So I’ve attempted to deploy an image onto the domain

Images should never be pre-joined to the domain, Active Directory is fundamentally incompatible with handling that scenario. Either use setupcomplete.cmd in sysprep to join the domain, or the FOG Client.

Yeah wasn’t the first thing I tried, more was testing it just to see if it made a difference.

Wasn’t aware the FOG Client was required to make the active directory feature work. Have since installed and tested, can confirm it worked.

Thanks for your help Joe.

@fry_p So if I’m understanding correctly, you’ve got your Surface with a USB hub directly connected to that. From that you’ve plugged in your surface adapter to one of those ports? Kind of makes sense with it struggling given it’s trying to get the IP from the other adapter.

I think to get this working together you’d want turn your surface on with the USB hub connected. CMD > getmac to figure out the mac address for both the HUB ethernet and the surface adapter. Then you can open up the fog dashboard, create a new host, manually add both mac addresses (making the surface adapter the primary one). Then under the FOG_KERNEL_ARGS section, add has_usb_nic=1. I imagine the next time you try to image it with all of that connected it should work.

With all of that said, do you really need to use the USB hub? Can you not just plug the surface usb > Ethernet adapter in directly? I haven’t done a full test with my 4 yet, but I know with the 3, the surface keyboard worked fine plugged in so I didn’t really have any need for the usb hub.

So with the ‘manage-bde -off C:’ command, are people then turning that back on once the image is created/deployed? Or given Bitlocker isn’t on, not bothering?

I suppose it’s made me think I should potentially look at turning bitlocker on for some staff members which will probably just be a manual process, but just wondering if I should then be turning the above command on when I do it.