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    george1421

    @george1421

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    Best posts made by george1421

    • Installing dnsmasq on your FOG server

      Use dnsmasq on the fog server to supply the pxe boot information.

      The quick steps are this.

      1. Remove the pxe boot information from your router.
      2. Install dnsmasq service from your linux distribution’s repo
      3. Make sure its at least version 2.76 by issuing this command at the fog server’s linux command prompt sudo dnsmasq -v The version needs to be 2.76 or later.
      4. Create a configuration file called ltsp.conf in /etc/dnsmasq.d directory.
      5. Paste this content into that file.
      # Don't function as a DNS server:
      port=0
      
      # Log lots of extra information about DHCP transactions.
      log-dhcp
      
      # Set the root directory for files available via FTP.
      tftp-root=/tftpboot
      
      # The boot filename, Server name, Server Ip Address
      dhcp-boot=undionly.kpxe,,<fog_server_IP>
      
      # Disable re-use of the DHCP servername and filename fields as extra
      # option space. That's to avoid confusing some old or broken DHCP clients.
      dhcp-no-override
      
      # inspect the vendor class string and match the text to set the tag
      dhcp-vendorclass=BIOS,PXEClient:Arch:00000
      dhcp-vendorclass=UEFI32,PXEClient:Arch:00006
      dhcp-vendorclass=UEFI,PXEClient:Arch:00007
      dhcp-vendorclass=UEFI64,PXEClient:Arch:00009
      
      # Set the boot file name based on the matching tag from the vendor class (above)
      dhcp-boot=net:UEFI32,i386-efi/ipxe.efi,,<fog_server_IP>
      dhcp-boot=net:UEFI,ipxe.efi,,<fog_server_IP>
      dhcp-boot=net:UEFI64,ipxe.efi,,<fog_server_IP>
      
      # PXE menu.  The first part is the text displayed to the user.  The second is the timeout, in seconds.
      pxe-prompt="Booting FOG Client", 1
      
      # The known types are x86PC, PC98, IA64_EFI, Alpha, Arc_x86,
      # Intel_Lean_Client, IA32_EFI, BC_EFI, Xscale_EFI and X86-64_EFI
      # This option is first and will be the default if there is no input from the user.
      pxe-service=X86PC, "Boot to FOG", undionly.kpxe
      pxe-service=X86-64_EFI, "Boot to FOG UEFI", ipxe.efi
      pxe-service=BC_EFI, "Boot to FOG UEFI PXE-BC", ipxe.efi
      
      dhcp-range=<fog_server_IP>,proxy
      
      1. Be sure to replace <fog_server_ip> exactly with the IP address of your fog server. Be aware that <fog_server_ip> appears multiple times in the config file.
      2. Save and exit your text edit.
      3. Issue the following command to restart dnsmasq service sudo systemctl restart dnsmasq
      4. Ensure that dnsmasq service is running in memory by issuing this command ps aux|grep dnsmasq. You should see more than one line in the response. If its running then go to step 10.
      5. Ensure that dnsmasq starts when the system is rebooting with sudo systemctl enable dnsmasq
      6. PXE boot a target computer.

      NOTE: If you are supporting multiple foreign subnets (not on the same subnet as your dnsmasq server, you will need to add additional with dhcp-range statements that properly describe that foreign network segment. If you fail to do this the dnsmasq server will not respond to the request from your dhcp-relay service an example of what is needed is below:

      dhcp-range=<fog_server_IP>,proxy
      dhcp-range=192.168.100.0,proxy,255.255.255.0
      dhcp-range=172.16.45.0,proxy,255.255.255.0
      

      Dhcp option 93 to hardware type table

      DHCP option 93 Client architecture|
      0 Standard PC BIOS
      6 32-bit x86 EFI
      7 64-bit x86 EFI
      9 64-bit x86 EFI (obsolete)
      10 32-bit ARM EFI
      11 64-bit ARM EFI

      posted in Tutorials
      george1421G
      george1421
    • FOG Post install script for Win Driver injection

      Introduction

      First I have to say this article contains the results of many brilliant people and is not my content. I’m only assembling this information into a consistent document instead of spread around buried in posts and responses. My intent is to not dig into the details behind the scripts or how to tweak them for your needs. You can read the links below to figure out why things are being done the way they are. I wanted to create a tutorial that was as close to a cut and paste to get driver injection going in your environment. Now I will primarily focus on Dell hardware for the main reason that Dell does supply driver archive files (known as .CABs) that can be downloaded and extracted quickly to create the driver structure. I’m sure that HP, Lenovo, and others have similar driver packs.

      You can download the Dell driver cabs for your hardware from here: http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/enterprise-client/w/wiki/2065.dell-command-deploy-driver-packs-for-enterprise-client-os-deployment

      Reference links:
      https://forums.fogproject.org/topic/4278/utilizing-postscripts-rename-joindomain-drivers-snapins
      https://forums.fogproject.org/topic/7740/the-magical-mystical-fog-post-download-script-under-construction
      https://forums.fogproject.org/topic/7740/the-magical-mystical-fog-post-download-script
      https://forums.fogproject.org/topic/8878/fog-drivers-script-will-not-run-correctly-in-postdownloadscripts/46

      posted in Tutorials
      george1421G
      george1421
    • The magical, mystical FOG post download script

      In this series if posts I plan on outlining what the FOG post download script is, what its about, and how to use it to your advantage with image deployment.

      I’ve debated with myself if another post was needed since Lee https://forums.fogproject.org/topic/4278/utilizing-postscripts-rename-joindomain-drivers-snapins and I https://forums.fogproject.org/topic/7391/deploying-a-single-golden-image-to-different-hardware-with-fog have written tutorial about them in the past.

      Where I want to explore with this series of posts is more about the background behind its function and to cover some of the script elements from Lee’s and my previously linked tutorials.

      First of all lets get a little background here and some terminology defined. The FOG image deployment system consists of three main components:

      1. The FOG management environment. The FOG management environment is the FOG server itself, which is responsible for planning, scheduling, instructing and documenting the image deployment.
      2. The FOS (FOG OS) target engine {need better name here}. The FOS target engine, or FOS (as it will be known in this document) is responsible for capturing and deploying images from the defined storage node, as well as other actions on the target computer. FOS is actually an FOG Project created high performance linux operating system that was specifically constructed to image target computers. We have to remember for the rest of the tutorial, FOS is a linux based operating system that is used to deploy any OS image to your target computer.
      3. FOG Client. This is an add on utility service for windows and linux, which is installed on the final or target OS. The FOG Client queries the FOG server for instructions and actions. I’m not planning on discussing the FOG client during this tutorial since it is out of scope in regards to post installation scripting.

      The FOG Post install scripts give FOG system admins the ability to inject actions in the image creation process. To allow this custom scripts to run the developers added an external call into the image deployment sequence. Just after the image is placed on the target computer’s storage device, the FOG server calls a script in the /images/postdownloadscripts directory (on the FOG server). That script is called fog.postdownload. The fog.postdownload script is created when the FOG Server is installed. In its default state the script doesn’t do anything much. It is just a place holder to call your custom post install scripts. As I mentioned the fog deployment process calls this fog.postdownload bash script just after the image is placed on the target computer’s storage device. Once all of the external post install scripts have completed the FOG server completes the imaging and data recording steps.

      While the post install scripts are stored on the FOG server in the /images/postinstall directory, they are executed by FOS running on the target host. So you have to remember when writing your post install scripts, they execute from the perspective of the target host. The post install scripts have limited access to resources on the FOG server (outside of the /images directory), but have full access to the target host. As noted above, these scripts run on a linux OS, so any resource (programs) available to linux operating systems can be run against the target host. I want to make this distinction to make it clear that FOS is linux and not MS Windows based. So you can not run MS Windows based applications, like DISM, in your post install script. FOS and linux is very powerful, but also limiting in some ways. As long as you are aware that MS Windows based applications can not run in a post install script then you should have little trouble. There are some cross over applications that are compiled for both MS Windows and linux, you just need to ensure you have the correct application for the OS and architecture (IA32 or X64).

      posted in Tutorials
      george1421G
      george1421
    • Using FOG to PXE boot into your favorite installer images

      Setting up the foundation for installation

      Hopefully this setup will be pretty clean and easy (just hoping…)

      In this tutorial, I’ve personally setup each distribution and booted it into a virtual machine. I didn’t run the installer to completion, but I did ensure the installer was running as far as I took the install (unless otherwise noted).

      These setups were only tested with a bios (legacy mode) target computer. They WILL NOT work with uefi systems. For uefi based systems they have their own kernel requirements and options. The intent of this tutorial was to show its possible to boot your installation media via pxe booting.

      First we need to setup the storage locations for our boot images. The plan is to put the installation media on the /images nfs share and the boot kernel and initfs in the tftp boot directory.

      mkdir /images/os
      mkdir /tftpboot/os
      mkdir /mnt/loop
      

      For the foundation setup that should do it. On to the OS specific configuration…

      Link to Windows 7 & Windows 10 BIOS Mode Only
      Link WinPE 10 for BIOS and UEFI based systems
      Link to Centos 7
      Link to Ubuntu 16.04.03
      Link to Ubuntu Desktop 19.10
      Link to Ubuntu Server 19.10
      Link to Ubuntu 17.10 Desktop
      Link to Ubuntu 16.04.03
      Link to Linux Mint 18.1
      Link to Linux Mint 19.1 Cinnamon
      Link to Debian 9.2
      Link to OpenSuSE Leap 42.3
      Link to Fedora Workstation v26
      Link to Fedora Workstation v27
      Link to Ubuntu Desktop 17.10
      Link to installing Samba on your FOG server
      Link to Kali Live 2017.3
      Link to ESXi v6.5u1
      Link to ESXi v6.7u2
      Link to SystemRescueCd 5.2.2 x64
      Link to GParted 0.33.0 x86
      Veeam Agent Rescue DVD
      Acronis 2018 (WinPE version)
      Paragon Hard Disk Manager
      Parted Magic version from May 2023

      posted in Tutorials
      george1421G
      george1421
    • RE: FOG broke my hard drive, why?

      The developers found this issue to why the log file grew so big (after almost a year of log file collection). The log file will now be capped at the log file maximum set by the fog configuration settings. This was just a fluke case that caused this file to grow to an abnormal size.

      The fix / log file limiting code will be in 1.3.5RC11 when its released.

      posted in Bug Reports
      george1421G
      george1421
    • RE: How does iPXE load fog files from the init.xz image

      What you need to understand that the FOS Engine (the customized linux operating system that captures and deployed images on the target computer) is a complete linux OS. It is built with 2 halves. The first part is the the kernel (bzImage) which contains the core linux functions as well as the compiled in device drivers. And the second part is the virtual hard drive (inits) which contains the linux utilities, programs, and fog command scripts. When you PXE boot a target computer into the iPXE menu, certain iPXE menu options will send the bzImage and inits files to the target computer. The iPXE menu will also send specific kernel parameters to tell the FOS Engine (linux) how to react when it boots.

      You can take the FOS Engine (bzImage and inits) and just as easily boot directly from a usb flash if you use grub as your boot loader. The FOS Engine will boot from the USB stick without requiring the FOG server to be online. The FOS Engine won’t do much without the proper kernel parameters being passed from the FOG server. But in the end FOS is a specialized, high performance, standalone linux OS.

      Now for specifics, I don’t have the details from inside FOS, but I suspect there is something in /etc/init.d that calls the main fog script called /bin/fog that script. The fog master script reads in the passed kernel parameters and then selects the proper task to execute.

      posted in General
      george1421G
      george1421
    • Deploying a single golden image to different hardware with FOG

      Preface

      The bits I’m going to cover here are the general outline of what needs to be done to create and deploy a hardware independent image across your fleet of computers. In this tutorial I’m going to discuss how to do this with Dell computers. I know this process works with Lenovo, Intel NUC, and a few others with some caveats. I’m going to touch on some steps that you need to do in MDT to build your universal reference image, but I’m not going to discuss how to setup MDT to create your reference images. There are plenty of examples on the internet on how to do this.

      This process makes use of a custom script that gets executed post image deployment but prior to the reboot of the FOS client. This step is vial since we need to make some tweaks to the windows environment pre first windows boot. This is the key. I can’t/won’t share that script I created because of my contract with my employer, because it is derived work because of my employment. So that script is intellectual property of my company. I’ve held the job title of unemployed, its not a great title. The pay stinks, the stress level is high, but the hours are great. I don’t plan on going there any time soon, so no script for you. BUT, sitting here on my zorin (ubuntu) dell laptop I should be able to reverse engineer the important parts to give the crafty scripters here the tools they need to create their own post install script.

      Our master image is created following the standard Microsoft SOE guidelines, meaning MDT to build the reference image, sysprep to reseal the image, use a custom unattend.xml file (required to make this process work for Win10) and some disk imaging tool to capture and deploy the image to the target hardware. In this process sysprep is mandatory since we want to create a single image that can be deployed to any hardware. The generalize process of sysprep removes all hardware references (for the reference image) so that when windows first boots it goes through the hardware discovery process. Without sysprepping the image the process I’m going to discuss will not work. So use sysprep.

      When I started out creating this process for FOG, I began with the process we created for deploying Windows XP from a usb stick using Ghost. In that process we would automate the image deployment with ghost to lay a hardware independent image onto the target hardware and then detect the current hardware using a DOS program that would query smbios to get the target hardware. Then once the target hardware was known we would move the correct driver pack into a location where windows would find it on the first boot. This worked extremely well with Windows XP. So I took the knowledge that I had from that process and tried to do something similar with FOG.

      I do have to say I did not think up this entire process all by my self. I did start the design base on the information found on this wiki page. https://wiki.fogproject.org/wiki/index.php?title=Auto_driver_Install This page and associated scripts gave me just what I needed to take our xp/ghost process and covert it to windows 7/FOG. So without that wiki page the remainder could not be possible.

      posted in Tutorials
      george1421G
      george1421
    • Synology NAS as FOG Storage node

      NOTE: Changes in FOG's code since this article was written have made it harder to use NAS' as storage node with FOG. If you use a NAS with FOG 1.5.x and beyond the FOG replicator will continue to cycle and recopy files over and over again.

      Part 1 NAS Setup

      So far I’ve setup what should work from the synology NAS side of the fog storage node. This has NOT been proven to work just yet. So far the synology nas has been configured to what “should work”. On my test NAS I’m using DSM 6.0.

      The following is just my short hand notes that will be used to create the actual tutorial. I’m out of time tonight to complete the docs for this.

      The first thing we need to do is setup our NAS with the required network shares. To do this you need access to the Synology NAS’s web console. Log into the web console as admin and do the following.

      1. Control Panel->Shared Folder
        Create new share
        Name: images
        Location: volume 1
        Checked Hide this shared folder in My Network Places
        Checked Hide sub-folders and files from users without permissions
        Press OK
        NFS Permission (tab)
        Create new Permission
        Hostname or IP: *
        Privilege: Read/Write
        Squash: No mapping
        Security: sys
        Checked Enable asynchronous
        Checked Allow users to access mounted subfolders

      2. Control Panel->Shared Folder
        Create new share
        Name: snapins
        Location: volume 1
        Checked Hide this shared folder in My Network Places
        Checked Hide sub-folders and files from users without permissions
        Press OK
        NFS Permision (tab)
        Create new Permission
        Hostname or IP: *
        Privilege: Read/Write
        Squash: No mapping
        Security: sys
        Checked Enable asynchronous

      3. Control Panel->Shared Folder
        Create new Share
        Name: tftpboot
        Location: volume 1
        Checked Hide this shared folder in My Network Places
        Checked Hide sub-folders and files from users without permissions
        Press OK
        NFS Permission (tab)
        Create new Permission (we only need this nfs shared for setting up the storage node)
        Hostname or IP: *
        Privilege: Read/Write
        Squash: No mapping
        Security: sys
        Checked Enable asynchronous

      4. Control Panel->File Services
        Select Win/Mac/NFS (tab)
        Checked Enable NFS

      5. Control Panel->File Services
        Select FTP (tab)
        Checked Enable FTP service (no encryption)
        Checked Use the default port range

      6. Control Panel->File Services
        Select TFTP (tab)
        Checked Enable TFTP service
        TFTP root folder: tftpboot (this is the share name we created above)

      7. Control Panel->User
        Select User (tab)
        Create user foguser
        Name: foguser
        Description: FOG User
        Password: fogremote1 (pick your own secure password)
        Conform Password: fogremote1
        Checked Disallow the user to change account password
        Press Next
        Join to group: users
        Press Next
        images: RW
        snapins: RW
        tftpboot: RO
        Press Next
        (Assign quota as needed)
        Press Next
        Assign application permissions: None
        Press Next
        Speed limiting: None
        Press Next
        Press Apply

      8. Control Panel->User
        Select the Advanced (tab)
        (scroll way at bottom)
        Under User Home
        Checked Enable user home service
        Press Apply

      That completes the setup of the Synology NAS.

      In the next part we’ll test the network shares we setup above and create the remaining flag files and directory structure needed to transform the Synology NAS into a FOG storage node.

      posted in Tutorials
      george1421G
      george1421
    • RE: Expose FOG host and image properties to post install scripts

      LET ME SAY THIS RIGHT OF THE BAT, I have not used this in my test environment, only on my dev box. So it may work well for production or it may fall flat. (it shouldn't because the code is solid). After my holiday I'll test it completely in my test environment before moving it to production.

      I think I was able to create a solution for this issue. I attempted to do a git fork / pull request but I’m not sure it worked so for the sake of documentation I’ll update what I was able to do there.

      First I created two new FOG Server pages. One is to pull the system variables I need into the fog postdownload bash scripts. The second page allows me to update/change a registered fog target computer name from a postdownload script. Just some background on this, my target machine names are all calculated based on the computer serial number and a OU prefix. Currently I’m using an unused field in FOG (Other1) to hold this OU prefix. So to properly and automatically name the target computer I need to pick up the serial number from smbios and combine it with the value from the other1 field in the host information. Below is what I’ve worked out to extend FOG to what I need.

      Create the following file: /var/www/html/fog/service/sethostname.php

      <?php
      require_once('../commons/base.inc.php');
      FOGCore::getClass('SetHostName');
      

      Create the following file: /var/www/html/fog/service/hostinfo.php

      <?php
      require_once('../commons/base.inc.php');
      FOGCore::getClass('Hostinfo');
      

      Create the following class file: /var/www/html/fog/lib/fog/sethostname.class.php

      <?php
      class SetHostName extends FOGBase {
          protected $macSimple;
          protected $newName;
          protected $oldName;
      
          public function __construct($check = false) {
              parent::__construct();
      
              self::stripAndDecode($_REQUEST);
              $this->macSimple = strtolower(str_replace(array(':','-'),':',substr($_REQUEST['mac'],0,20)));
              $this->newName = substr(trim($_REQUEST['newname']," \t\n\r\0"),0,20);
              $this->oldName = substr(trim($_REQUEST['oldname']," \t\n\r\0"),0,20);
      
              ob_start();
              header('Content-Type: text/plain');
              header('Connection: close');
      
              if ((strlen($this->newName) > 3) & (strlen($this->oldName) > 0)) {
                  $query = sprintf("UPDATE hosts JOIN hostMAC ON (hostMAC.hmHostID = hosts.hostID) SET hostName='%s' WHERE ( (hostMAC.hmMAC='%s') AND (hostName LIKE '%s') );", $this->newName, $this->macSimple, $this->oldName);
      
                  self::$DB->query($query);
                  echo "OK";
              } else {
                  echo "Fail";
              }
              flush();
              ob_flush();
              ob_end_flush();
          }
      }
      

      Create the following class file: /var/www/html/fog/lib/fog/hostinfo.class.php

      <?php
      class HostInfo extends FOGBase {
          protected $macSimple;
          protected $repFields = array(
              'hostName' => 'hostname',
              'hostDesc' => 'hostdesc',
              'imageOSID' => 'imageosid',
              'imagePath' => 'imagepath',
              'hostUseAD' => 'hostusead',
              'hostADDomain' => 'hostaddomain',
              'hostADOU' => 'hostadou',
              'hostProductKey' => 'hostproductkey',
              'iPrimaryUser' => 'primaryuser',
              'iOtherTag' => 'othertag',
              'iOtherTag1' => 'othertag1',
              'lName' => 'location',
              'iSysman' => 'sysman',
              'iSysproduct' => 'sysproduct',
              'iSysserial' => 'sysserial',
              'iMbman' => 'mbman',
              'iMbserial' => 'mbserial',
              'iMbasset' => 'mbasset',
              'iMbproductname' => 'mbproductname',
              'iCaseman' => 'caseman',
              'iCaseserial' => 'caseserial',
              'iCaseasset' => 'caseasset',
          );
      
          public function __construct($check = false) {
              parent::__construct();
      
              self::stripAndDecode($_REQUEST);
              $this->macSimple = strtolower(str_replace(array(':','-'),':',substr($_REQUEST['mac'],0,20)));
      
              $query = sprintf("SELECT hostName,hostDesc,imageOSID,imagePath,hostUseAD,hostADDomain,hostADOU,hostProductKey,iPrimaryUser,iOtherTag,iOtherTag1,lName,iSysman,iSysproduct,iSysserial,iMbman,iMbserial,iMbasset,iMbproductname,iCaseman,iCaseserial,iCaseasset FROM (((hostMAC INNER JOIN (hosts LEFT JOIN images ON hosts.hostImage = images.imageID) ON hostMAC.hmHostID = hosts.hostID) LEFT JOIN inventory ON hosts.hostID = inventory.iHostID) LEFT JOIN locationAssoc ON hosts.hostID = locationAssoc.laHostID) LEFT JOIN location ON locationAssoc.laLocationID = location.lID WHERE (hostMAC.hmMAC='%s');", $this->macSimple);
      
              $tmp = (array)self::$DB->query($query)->fetch('','fetch_all')->get();
      
              ob_start();
              header('Content-Type: text/plain');
              header('Connection: close');
      
              foreach ((array)$tmp AS $i => &$DataRow) {
                  foreach ((array)$DataRow AS $j => &$DataField) {
                      echo  "export " . $this->repFields[$j] . "=\"" . $DataField . "\"\n";
                      unset($DataField);
                  }
                  unset($DataRow);
              };
              flush();
              ob_flush();
              ob_end_flush();
          }
      }
      

      And finally the post install bits

      Edit /images/postdownloadscripts/fog.postdownload and insert the following command before your custom post install script

      . ${postdownpath}fog.hostinfo
      

      Create the following file: /images/postdownloadscripts/fog.hostinfo

      #!/bin/bash
      
        . /usr/share/fog/lib/funcs.sh;
        wget -q -O /tmp/hinfo.txt "http://<fog_server_IP>/fog/service/hostinfo.php?mac=$mac"
        . /tmp/hinfo.txt
        rm -f /tmp/hinfo.txt
      

      If everything works as expected you should now have access to the following bash variables in your post install script

      $hostname == name of the host (should overwrite existing $hostname)
      $hostdesc == Description of host
      $imageosid == Operating System ID (should be the same as $osid)
      $imagepath == The root path of the image(should also be the image name)
      $hostusead == 1 or 0 to add host to AD
      $hostaddomain == host domain name
      $hostadou == host target ou
      $hostproductkey == host product key
      $primaryuser == Value from Primary User field
      $othertag == Value from OtherTag field
      $othertag1 == Value from OtherTag1 field
      $location == Location Name from location plugin
      $sysman == System Manufacturer from smbios
      $sysproduct == System Product Name from smbios (from full registration)
      $sysserial == System Serial Number from smbios (from full registration)
      $mbman == Motherboard Manufacturer from smbios (from full registration)
      $mbserial == Motherboard Serial Number from smbios (from full registration)
      $mbasset == Motherboard Asset tag from smbios (from full registration)
      $mbproductname == Motherboard Product Name from smbios (from full registration)
      $caseman == Case Manufacturer from smbios (from full registration)
      $caseserial == Case Serial Number from smbios (from full registration)
      $caseasset == Case Asset tag from smbios (from full registration)
      

      And the last bit is to call the set host name function.
      wget -q -“http://<fog_server_IP>/fog/service/sethostname.php?mac=$mac&oldname=$oldhostname&newname=$newhostname”

      For this script to work you must supply the host mac address, its new host name and for safety sake its old host name to prevent an accidental host name change.

      posted in Feature Request
      george1421G
      george1421
    • When DHCP-PXE booting process goes bad and you have no clue

      Sometimes when we can’t understand why the pxe booting process is going sideways and we’ve touched on the common causes, the easiest solution is to setup the FOG server to eavesdrop on the dhcp setup process between the dhcp server and pxe booting client.

      This process will work perfectly if the fog server, dhcp server, and pxe booting client are in the same broadcast domain (IP subnet, network, vlan). It will work if your fog server and pxe booting client are on the same subnet too, its just not as clean of a trace. And the last way to achieve this is to use a second computer running wireshark on the same subnet as the pxe booting computer. Setting up the wireshark filters are similar to the tcpdump filters, but that is a bit beyond the scope of this tutorial.

      This is going to be a pretty low impact test. We just want to capture a packet trace of the pxe booting process to the error.

      First a little background. The DHCP protocol is broadcast based. That means that discovery, offer, request and ack are all sent as broadcast messages (because the client doesn’t have an IP address during this process). Knowing this fact we can eavesdrop on the communication between the dhcp server and pxe client with the FOG server as long as all three are in the same broadcast domain, subnet, vlan, etc.

      So what we need to do is this:

      1. Install tcpdump on your FOG server from your linux distributions repository.
      2. Start tcpdump on the FOG server’s linux console with this command tcpdump -w output.pcap port 67 or port 68 or port 69 or port 4011
      3. PXE boot the target computer until you see the error or the FOG iPXE menu
      4. Wait about 5 seconds then hit ctrl-C on the FOG server’s linux console.
      5. You can review the pcap with Wireshark or upload it to a developer/moderator for their review.

      Just a quick sidebar: We are telling tcpdump to write the output of the packet capture to output.pcap. And we have setup some filters because we only care about dhcp (port 67 and 68), tftp (port 69), and dhcpProxy (4011). One thing you should do is keep the time when you start tcpdump and start the pxe boot process on the client as short as possible. Because if you have a busy dhcp network we may key in on the wrong dhcp boot process. So you want to start tcpdump and then right away start the target pxe booting.

      posted in Tutorials
      george1421G
      george1421

    Latest posts made by george1421

    • RE: Change menu when client registers

      @alterak If you know how to program linux bash scripts this is possible. You will need to edit a script called fog.man.reg that is in FOS Linux (the OS that runs on the target computer to capture/deploy images). I have a tutorial on modifying that program to set a default hostname. But the concepts you need to do what you ware are listed here: https://forums.fogproject.org/topic/14278/creating-custom-hostname-default-for-fog-man-reg

      posted in General
      george1421G
      george1421
    • RE: PXE over IPv4

      @Faurel ok good that looks like a clean dhcp process. It would be helpful to have the pcap file in my hand, but you want to expand the OFFER packet. The OFFER packet you can tell from the Info column.

      In the packet you may need to expand the dhcp section. You should see the image similar to below. What is important is the next server IP address should point to IP address of your fog server. and boot file name should be ipxe.efi. You see in this example that the boot file name was not given, this is the error with this packet. The next server and boot file are in the ethernet header. This is the legacy bootp pxe section.

      The next place you need to check is the dhcp options below. You should see dhcp options 66 which should be the IP address of the fog server and dhcp 67 should be the boot file name of ipxe.efi. In this picture this packet is also in error since the dhcp server is not sending out all of the pxe booting info. So if your offer packet looks like this you have a problem.

      Screenshot from 2025-05-07 17-14-20.png

      posted in General Problems
      george1421G
      george1421
    • RE: FOG operation in different network segments

      @alterak said in FOG operation in different network segments:

      is there a possibility of automatic separation of locations,

      I’m not sure I fully understand the question, but if you are asking can it automatically pick which location to select based on the IP address of the computer being registered. The quick answer is no, FOG doesn’t currently have that capabilities.

      The bit longer answer is it could if you can be a little creative and can do a little linux bash script programming. In a nutshell, you can customize the bash script that is setup for full registration of computers. The basics of what needs to be done is covered in this tutorial: https://forums.fogproject.org/topic/14278/creating-custom-hostname-default-for-fog-man-reg

      The IP address bit can come from this script: https://forums.fogproject.org/post/69725 This post is for getting the IP address to be used in a FOG postdownload script. But the concept will be the same for the fog.man.reg script.

      posted in General
      george1421G
      george1421
    • RE: PXE over IPv4

      @Faurel said in PXE over IPv4:

      My DHCP server is a VM running Nutanix.

      What is your dhcp server? Is it MS Windows based or something else.

      Do you know how to run wireshark? I think we need to get a witness computer (a third computer not part of pxe booting). Place the wireshark computer on the same subnet as the pxe booting computer. Use the capture filter of port 67 or port 68 This capture filter will only collect pxe booting information.

      What I want to focus on is the one or more DHCP OFFER packets.

      1. Is there more than 1 OFFER packet?
      2. Is the OFFER packet from the correct DHCP server?
      3. Looking into the OFFER packet, in the packet header there are two fields one called {next-server} and {boot-file} are these fields populated?
      4. Look at the dhcp options do you see options 66 and 67? Do they point to the correct values?

      If you are unsure of what you are looking at, upload the file to a file share site and post the link here and I will take a look for the common issues.

      posted in General Problems
      george1421G
      george1421
    • RE: FOG operation in different network segments

      @alterak Typically in your situation you would install a full fog server at the main site. Then install a FOG Storage node at the second site. Technically they perform the same roles except the full fog server has the database and the web interface. One additional caveat is that the Full fog server (or called master node) is the only FOG server that can capture images. The images created at the master node will replicate to the storage node. This is how it works by design.

      One other thing that will help you is to install a FOG “Location” plugin. This way you assign fog servers and target computers to locations so the target computers will know what FOG server to get the images from.

      posted in General
      george1421G
      george1421
    • RE: PXE over IPv4

      @Faurel There are several things here.

      The no valid offer received, indicates it either did not receive a dhcp packet without the next server and boot file listed or what it was given didn’t satisfy the request.

      Let start with something that jumped out at me first. The pxe booting computer is being issued an 192.168.10.72 IP address (this is good so we know its receiving a reply). And your FOG server is on 192.168.3.93. That tells me they are on different subnets or you have a pretty wide network mask. Are these two devices on the same subnet?

      If they are on different subnets, what is the dhcp server the workstation subnet? Is it possible you don’t have the pxe booting values set in the scope for the workstations? Or there is another dhcp server in play here?

      Also make sure you don’t have white spaces around your dhcp option values I’ve seen a trailing white space on a parameter mess up dhcp too.

      Lastly what device manufacturer and model is your dhcp server? Some SoHo routers will point dhcp option 66 to them even if there is a valid dhcp option 66 activated, but I don’t think that is the case here because the client is complaining about not getting any valid offers. Also on your dhcp sever make sure it issues both bootp (older) and dhcp (current) pxe booting values. These are kept in two different places in the dhcp server’s response packet.

      posted in General Problems
      george1421G
      george1421
    • RE: Fog iPXE Menu no input

      @AxeMeAQuestion22 I see a slight contradiction, maybe in the way I read it. You have some lenovos that work and some that don’t.

      It almost sounds like a usb controller issue (just a wild guess at the moment).

      I just want to say this is an issue with the ipxe binaries since ipxe manages the FOG iPXE menu. This has nothing to do with FOS (yet) that would be bzImage and init.xz which haven’t been sent to the target computer at this point.

      When on the ipxe menu does it accept the enter key where the arrow keys are not working?

      Is this a US english keyboard? If no what language.

      Just to confirm that you recompiled iPXE using the instructions you pointed to? Verify the files in tftp directory have the current date that you recompiled them.

      What model/make does not work vs what make/model does work?

      posted in FOG Problems
      george1421G
      george1421
    • RE: Portable Use of FOG

      @Datsys On the technical side, I would install the largest ssd or nvme drive you can afford and keep everything internal. As I mentioned with the OEM image capture this is only one image and will deploy to any computer and should activate properly using the method I described. So once the image has been deployed most applications can be installed in the unattended mode, typically with command line switches. You can deploy these applications post image deployment with FOG’s snap-in system. This would still be in compliance with M$'s EULA. Basically you would adjust the computer after deployment You could even create a batch/ps file deployed by a snap-in to connect the target system to AD or make other alterations to the system, just as you might do by hand post image deployment. The extend of these post deployment activities are up to you.

      I think once october hits you will have plenty of no longer useful systems hit the market so you could go to the next step of setting up local deployment servers at each customer.

      posted in General
      george1421G
      george1421
    • RE: Portable Use of FOG

      @Datsys You have both a technical and legal question in your post that will require a fire dance to navigate well.

      On the technical side, it is possible to configure FOG in a mobile deployment server mode. Whereas you can have FOG loaded on a portable computer and take it from site to site to deploy images. Its best if you use onboard storage for the images but it would be possible to use a portable usb drive but your downloading performance would be not good because of the bandwidth. If you used a high speed usb-c attached drive then performance would compare to onboard storage. One issue I see is that to properly network boot target computer for imaging you will need certain network infrastructure changes to make it work. This is modifying your dhcp server to send out the boot server (FOG server) ip address and boot file to load. While the fog server is on site this will work perfectly, if the fog server is at a different site not so much. You can mask this issue by installing dnsmasq on the mobile deployment server so that only the pxe boot information is sent out while the fog server is on site. This can also be problematic, but it is a workable solution.

      The MS Windows/legal issue is a bit more complicated. For OEM licensed computers you are not allowed to create a golden image (customized image with additional software loaded) and then capture and deploy it to multiple computer. The EULA requires a volume license key for this. You can deploy images only in the OEM format and then after that is deployed add on custom software on top. To be able to deploy an OEM image (legally) You can either use FOG to share the ISO image to the target computer, or what I’ve done in the past is take a development machine and install Windows 11 on it, but only to the point of the first reboot. You MUST stop the system from booting on that first reboot. That first reboot is the transition from WinPE environment to the Windows Setup/OOBE process. Now capture that image at the first reboot and deploy with FOG. This is still inline with the OEM EULA because you are not altering the image only cloning it during the middle of installation. When you deploy the image to computer #2 WinSetup/OOBE will continue to run. Now at the end use FOG to install custom applications and your done.

      I can tell you getting a VLK key and image is a much simpler solution. I don’t know what M$ current licensing is, but it use to be you only need to purchase 1 VLK key for all of the company’s computers to use the VLK key. You needed 5 licenses to reach the minimum order so for small companies that had a windows server and windows workstations we would purchase 1 VLK key and 4 widows servers client connection licenses, cause you can always use server connection licenses. Just let me repeat I don’t know what MS current licensing model is so this may be old information.

      Just to wrap up:
      Can you create a mobile FOG deployment server? Yes. You will need to be really familiar with Linux to do this though.
      Can you repurpose all of these unused windows 10 computers as FOG servers and leave then connected to the customer’s network, Yes (a bit better idea).
      Can you deploy Windows 11 with FOG, yes (until MS break this too).

      posted in General
      george1421G
      george1421
    • RE: Fog iPXE Menu no input

      @AxeMeAQuestion22 What hardware has this issue? Is it one model/manufacturer, all models/manufacturer?

      Is the device a laptop or desktop? If laptop does using an external keyboard plugged directly into the laptop work?

      What language is this keyboard?

      I have to think there is something unique with this hardware that is causing a keyboard issue with ipxe.

      posted in FOG Problems
      george1421G
      george1421