I’ve found a work around. I now have /images on USB HDD passed through the to VM. When I run a standard back up of the VM via the VM software (Virtualization Station), it only back-ups the OS VM drive.
For the /images drive - I use a sync program to back-up the files, not the disk .
I thought I’d posted about this before but it doesn’t show up in my post history. After capturing an image, Image Size ON SERVER shows as 0 or sometimes 1GB/MB. All the partitions and other information were captured successfully in /images/[imagename] and are the correct size. Once the FOG server is rebooted, Image Size ON SERVER displays correctly.
Thank you
@JJ-Fullmer said in FOG has issues if the temp image location is on another drive. FOG 1.5.10.1612 Ubuntu Server24.04.1 LTS:
How big of an issue is this disk size inflation for you?
It’s not a big deal. I’ve since stopped capturing non-OS drives and now use file sync / mirror program to back those up. I actually like that better than huge image captures once a week. Currently, FOG is just capturing 2 relatively small OS drive images.
All this is running on a QNAP box someone gave me and QNAP’s Virtualization Station software is lacking features to cleanup/shrink or compact virtual machine disks.
This all started out as a Feature Request
https://forums.fogproject.org/topic/17651/local-time-and-alternate-temp-directory-for-capture-option
It’s odd that linux/php are having this limitation but that’s where we’re at.
Is this something the devs would change if it was brought to their attention?
Thanks
Ok I think I have it set up how you asked
New mount points
Symlinks
Gonna try to capture will report back
Same thing.
@JJ-Fullmer said in FOG has issues if the temp image location is on another drive. FOG 1.5.10.1612 Ubuntu Server24.04.1 LTS:
@Fog_Newb I think I found the problem.
Normally the ftp_rename command successfully handles moving the captured image from
/images/devto/imagesbut for some reason that command ( a built in php/ftp thing) doesn’t like it when the directories are mounted on separate disks. Not sure why, doesn’t make a ton of sense, but that’s the issue.
That makes sense to me especially if that command is only able to rename.
Basically I think you may have found a bug in a failsafe method for uploading a captured image.
Cool cool?
@Tom-Elliott said in FOG has issues if the temp image location is on another drive. FOG 1.5.10.1612 Ubuntu Server24.04.1 LTS:
I will definitely try this. Just to make sure I understand how you want these new directories mounted…
sudo mkdir /images1
sudo mkdir /imagesdev1
Then adjust fstab so ‘/images1’ is a mount point for one drive (where /images was mounted), and ‘/imagesdev1’ is a mount point for the other drive (where /images/dev was mounted. Mount them, once mounted then I do…
After mounting these, new mount points, everything that was in /images and /images/dev is now in /images1 and /imagesdev1
sudo rm -rf /images
sudo rm -rf /images/dev
sudo ln -s /images1 /images
sudo ln -s /imagesdev1 /images/dev
Then capture an image and see what happens
@JJ-Fullmer said in FOG has issues if the temp image location is on another drive. FOG 1.5.10.1612 Ubuntu Server24.04.1 LTS:
@Fog_Newb I am able to recreate the problem in the latest stable version (1.5.10.1615). Working it out. it looks like the image does stay in dev on my end.
I’ll debug this when I can this week.
Awesome. Thanks.
Then you could at least manually move the image from dev to images to workaround the issue while we work this out.
I have another FOG server set up where /images and /images/dev are on the same drive so I can continue using that until things get sorted.
@JJ-Fullmer said in FOG has issues if the temp image location is on another drive. FOG 1.5.10.1612 Ubuntu Server24.04.1 LTS:
@Fog_Newb Fog is creating NFS shares from your 2 disks at those mount points. If they were not shared, imaging would not work. On the server the paths are mounted to different disks. And then each of those paths are shared, you can see this if you run
cat /etc/exportswhere the shares are defined.
Oh I see
Why is /images ro? Shouldn’t it be rw? How do I change that? I’m going to edit the /etc/exports file and change /images to rw and test
So I edited it - from ro to rw saved and rebooted but same results.
I guess ro is the way /images is supposed to be as far as /etc/exports
https://github.com/FOGProject/fogproject/security/advisories/GHSA-3xjr-xf9v-hwjh
So in 1.6 does the image stay in the dev folder?
Yes
What is the size of the file when it creates a file instead of a folder?
0 bytes
What is your php version?
php - v
8.3.6
@JJ-Fullmer said in FOG has issues if the temp image location is on another drive. FOG 1.5.10.1612 Ubuntu Server24.04.1 LTS:
So /images and /images/dev are 2 nfs shares on your FOG server.
They are both local drives on the FOG server formatted GUID ext4. Everything is on that machine. There aren’t any network drives or shares.
Try moving/copying a file from /images/dev to /images on the server directly, confirm that works.
Yes, moving and copying from /images/dev to /images and visa versa works fine.
Try booting into a debug capture session, capture the image (use the command fog and hit enter to step through. Capture any errors.
There are no errors during the debug capture process.
Oddly enough, FOG/FOS will attempt to create the directory on /images, but it creates a file instead.
So, If I try to capture a new image named “BigBox”, after the capture there will be a file, not a directory, in /images named “BigBox”, - but that is it. Everything else stays in /images/dev/{mac}/*
Updated - I’ve tried FOG 1.5.10.1615 (coming from FOG 1.5.10.1612) and 1.6.0-beta.2130. Same results and no errors during debug-capture.
*1.6.0-beta.2130 does not create a file named after the image in /images
P.S. I now see what you mean by “the random numbers” being MAC addresses (the temp directories for the images). I thought you were talking about the other ‘random numbers’
@JJ-Fullmer said in FOG has issues if the temp image location is on another drive. FOG 1.5.10.1612 Ubuntu Server24.04.1 LTS:
- FOS is writing to the /images/dev share
- FOS can’t move the files from one share to another when the shares are on different disks.
exactly
FOS is mounting both nfs shares correctly.
In my case, there’s no NFS shares involved, unless I’m misunderstanding.
/images and /images/dev are ‘mount points’ of the 2nd and 3rd local hard-drives on the VM. Maybe I’ve been using the term ‘mount points’ incorrectly
Also, just an FYI, it’s not random numbers, it’s the mac address of the host being captured.
When I mentioned random numbers I was talking about the numbers listed during the ubuntu install for the disk drive device numbers.
They weren’t the UUID’s of the drives or partitions and looked too long to be MAC addresses
@Tom-Elliott said in FOG has issues if the temp image location is on another drive. FOG 1.5.10.1612 Ubuntu Server24.04.1 LTS:
Manually moving a directory (which couldn’t possibly fit on vda) from /images/dev (vdc) to /images (vdb) caused the virtual disk size on vdb to increase. IMHO, it seems clear the directory was initially stored on vdc. Am I wrong in assuming this confirms that the mounts are correctly configured and functioning?
Yes. vdb is /images, so moving a file from /images/dev (vdc) to /images (vdb) should cause the disk to increase on vdb? The sice on vdc wouldn’t decrease but the amount of usable space off vdc should be increased by the amount of the file that was moved to now vdb?
That’s what I’m understanding here. I don’t know if this means there is an issue or if this is working as intended, but it seems like it is?
That is what I was thinking - I was trying to establish that the mount points are set up correctly and that it’s not an issue with fstab.
It only takes a few minutes or so to spin one of these VM’s. I spun up another VM, same parameters and mount points. The only things added other than the ssh server during the Ubuntu install were - the Ubuntu updates, dnsmasq, pip, tzlocal, tz… and of course the latest FOG dev version 1.5.10.1614. All cloud services, disabled
I exported it to OVF right before registering a host and capturing an image… which exhibited the same problems.
If you or anyone else wants to check it out
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GPJH0ZuJFZaTqmGvIe1EM2HBCVlde4FI/view?usp=sharing
username: test
password: 123456
All 3 VM drive images are included with the OVF. A 2.8 GB zip since the drives have barely anything on them.
Fog web interface - user and password are defaults
It takes a ridiculously long time to import the OVF into VMWare Workstation. But it will import
If you want it quick and dirty create a new UEFI based Linux VM and chose to use the existing vmdk drives contained in the zip.
A copy of the conf file used by dnsmasq is in the home directory
I think this thread has gotten a bit off track, partly due to my explanation about trying to modify an existing FOG server.
So, if I could - Let’s forget about the old FOG server - a re-cap - the new ‘test’ FOG server.
Fresh Ubuntu 24.04.1 install with 3 drives. During the install process, I created mount points for /images (vdb), and /images/dev (vdc)
each drive has a unique UUID
mount points correct
fstab created by the Ubuntu installer
I installed FOG 1.5.10.1612 without any issues—no errors at all. During the installation, the FOG installer successfully wrote files and set permissions on both mount points (/images/dev (vdc) and /images (vdb)). And all the files that should be in each directory/mount are present when compared to a functioning FOG server.
When capturing an image, it gets stuck in the temporary location /images/dev/[randomnumbers] and never moves to the /images directory.
executing both
sudo chown -R fogproject:fogproject /images
and
sudo chmod 775 -R /images
then re-testing/capturing - no change
Manually moving a directory (which couldn’t possibly fit on vda) from /images/dev (vdc) to /images (vdb) caused the virtual disk size on vdb to increase. IMHO, it seems clear the directory was initially stored on vdc. Am I wrong in assuming this confirms that the mounts are correctly configured and functioning?
Anyway, it’s not a big deal. I just wanted to make sure I’ve at least clarified everything
Thanks
@AUTH-IT-Center said in FOG has issues if the temp image location is on another drive. FOG 1.5.10.1612 Ubuntu Server24.04.1 LTS:
try the below
/dev/disk/by-uuid/d61ab2ae-b79a-4b07-bfc5-4678ab0902f4 /images ext4 defaults 0 1 /dev/disk/by-uuid/3d7874cb-8c59-4e6d-8735-fb8361994590 /imagesdev ext4 defaults 0 1 /imagesdev /images/dev none defaults,bind 0 0Sources:
Same results only - the changes you suggested making to fstab created /imagesdev along with /images/dev on vcd. Both are bound together.
Create a file in /imagesdev it is seen in /images/dev and vis-a vers-a.
If you’re looking at the Storage Configuration screen cap, those numbers are something else and are slightly different. The end numbers - 01, 02, 03
The UUID’s for vda1, vda2, vdb, and vdc are different
Unfortunately, making those change to fstab, saving then rebooting resulted in errors during boot when it attempted to mount vdc (/images/dev) and ultimately led to “emergency mode”.
No worries though, in emergency mode I was able to edit fstab
I know when the box is booted, mount points are correct vdb is mounted as /images, and vdc is mounted as /images/dev
To test this I moved a 20 something GB directory from /images/dev to /images. The size of the VM disk image for vdb grew 20 something GB. The directory I coped from, /images/dev had to have been on vdc since the OS drive (vda) doesn’t have that much space. And it couldn’t have been on vdb since it would have moved instantly and the VM disk image for vdb wouldn’t have increased in size.
edit - just for the heck of it, I removed /images and /images/dev from fstab and once booted, I manually mounted /images (vdb) once I confirmed that was mounted and working I manually mounted /images/dev (vdc) - still the same problem with FOG
@Tom-Elliott said in FOG has issues if the temp image location is on another drive. FOG 1.5.10.1612 Ubuntu Server24.04.1 LTS:
- Change the ownership back to
chown -R fogproject:fogproject /images; chmod 775 -R /imagesThis should allow your system to work without issues.
I ran each command separately, this time on the new FOG server. The one where FOG created the permissions and files during the install. However I’m still experiencing the same issue
Your FSTAB needs to have the mount set correctly too so that dev gets mounted appropriately on subsequent boots which I presume is already happening?
Yes, in both cases - on the original FOG server and new test FOG server fstab was correct, the mount points mounted fine at boot and I was able to manually write directories and files to each mount (/images /images/dev). I’ve pasted the contents of the fstab in an earlier comment
So strange. As long as both /images and /images/dev are on the same mount/drive everything goes off without a hitch
Thanks -The fstab paste is below. The parameters are correct as far as I can tell and they were added by Ubuntu during the install. And it appears both /images and /images/dev are mounting correctly and accessible since FOG was able to capture to /images/dev and create a file in /images. I was also able to manually create files and directories in each mount location without any problem. If you see something out of place feel free to let me know.
On my other FOG server, where there is only the 2nd drive, and it’s is a mount point for /images, it uses the same fstab parameters (albiet different UUID) and it has been working fine.
Yes, I even spun up a new FOG VM where the mount points were created before FOG was installed to makesure the FOG installer created all the files and set permissions.
edited - words