@joe-schmitt The issue is with fuzzy searches, iPXE must somehow identify the system or will it just pass the mac address to a FOG backend process and that backend process will reach out and identify the hardware. In at way the mac address will be a tickler to trigger fog to reach out and identify the hardware?

I do think you are on the right approach for a weighted average though.

I might suggest that we do try to use the fields iPXE can read and combine them into a passable string to the fog back end processes. iPXE has some crude string concatenation functions that we might use. I realize for FOG 2 we might not use iPXE (guess), so the process may be different.

manufacturer 	(string) 	Manufacturer
product 	(string) 	Product name
serial 	(string) 	Serial number
asset 	(string) 	Asset tag 

There are a couple of way to go about this neither is perfectly clean.

I guess the first question to ask is if your can install 2 hard drives in your FOG server at one time?

If yes then you have options (not in any special order).

1. If your FOG server uses LVM disk management, you can just add the new 8TB disk to the existing root LVM volume. Let the OS manage the disk space.

2. Map the new drive to the existing FOG server and mount over the /images directory: https://forums.fogproject.org/topic/6642/moving-fog-s-images-files-off-the-root-partition

3. Setup the FOG server as a second storage node (basically map back to the FOG server where the 8TB drive is mounted). You will need to use the location plugin do decide which image goes to which (logical) storage node.

4. Clone your 1TB drive to your 8TB drive.

What ever solution, my preference is to not have the /images directory a member of the linux root partition. Filling up the root partition on linux is never a good thing. If the images are stored on the root partition its possible if the disk is not checked before the upload you could fill the root partition and bring down the linux OS. (I’ve been there and done that a few times).

@roee I have vm workstation 11 and the setting is under the edit menu Edit->Virtual Network Editor…

As long as the dhcp server is not bridged to the physical adapter you should be all right. In my case I just made sure the vmnetX logical adapters weren’t bound to the physical network adapter. There should be isolation so your PC should not respond to dhcp requests.

It may be doing something with dhcp and the nat service, but again this is abnormal.

@dpotesta50 Its the other way around, its the target computer disk that is in question.

One way to find out is to schedule a debug capture. Just click on the debug check box when you go to schedule the capture. When you do that pxe boot the target computer after a few presses of the enter key you will be dropped to a linux prompt on the target computer. Then just key in fog and it will single step you through the capture. When you get to the error, watch what partclone says. Also right after the error, press ctrl-c where it will drop you back to the command prompt, then we can inspect the partclone.log (on the target). It should be in /var/log (on the target).

@george1421 Ah hidden under news (??) https://news.fogproject.org/simplified-api-documentation/

@fredlwal This is the error Cannot add PPA: ‘ppa:ondrej/php’. that is the root of your issue.

I just remember a thread about this issue, this past week. It was related to some non-LTS versions of ubuntu not having this package available.

@fredlwal What version of Debian/Ubuntu are you using?

@Developers I remember seeing a thread on this, but I can’t seem to find it or the answer, sorry.

Take the hint from Sebastian for image verify here is what I did so far.

I created a new snponly.efi image from the rom-o-matic. The script will chain to my dev fog server running the trunk build, but contains fog 1.2.0 stable kernels (yields better error messages).

This is the ipxe chain command: chain tftp://192.168.1.88/tester.ipxe

The tester.ipxe script file was populated with the code used for the quick reg action.

#!ipxe

kernel bzImage init=/sbin/init initrd=init.xz root=/dev/ram0 rw ramdisk_size=127000 web=192.168.1.88/fog/ consoleblank=0 debug loglevel=7 mode=autoreg
initrd  init.xz
boot

So that is the testing environment.

[round 1]
I copied the bzImage and init.xz files (fog 1.2.0 stable) to the /tftpboot directory so I could load them via tftp instead of http. The system was booted and the transfer (as expected) was terribly slow. But the results were the same “corrupt init.xz”

[round 2]
I updated the ipxe file to use http to download the image file.

#!ipxe

kernel http://192.168.1.88/fog/service/ipxe/bzImage init=/sbin/init initrd=init.xz root=/dev/ram0 rw ramdisk_size=127000 web=192.168.1.88/fog/ consoleblank=0 debug loglevel=7 mode=autoreg
initrd  http://192.168.1.88/fog/service/ipxe/init.xz
boot

Same results: “corrupt init.xz”

[round 3]
Increased the size of the ram drive to 250000
Results: “corrupt init.xz”

[round 4]
Attempted to boot bzImage32 and init_32.xz
Results: boot failed

[round 5]
Reset bzImage and init.xz

Updated the tester.ipxe to use image verify command and built the self signed ca and then signed both bzImage and init.xz creating the required .sig files.

#!ipxe

imgtrust --permanent

kernel http://192.168.1.88/fog/service/ipxe/bzImage init=/sbin/init initrd=init.xz root=/dev/ram0 rw ramdisk_size=250000 web=192.168.1.88/fog/ consoleblank=0 debug loglevel=7 mode=autoreg
initrd  http://192.168.1.88/fog/service/ipxe/init.xz
imgverify bzImage http://192.168.1.88/fog/service/ipxe/bzImage.sig

boot

Results: imgverify command not found (!!nuts!!)

[round 6]
rebuilt the ipxe.efi to include the IMAGE_TRUST_CMD. updated dhcp to use ipxe.efi instead of snponly.efi
Results: Failure the ipxe.efi was not compiled with a valid certificate. Ugh! unless the ipxe.efi file was compiled with the self signing certificate the imgverify command won’t work.

@dpotesta50 ok what I want you to do is this.

inspect the following hidden file: /opt/fog/.fogsettings (yes the dot belongs in there).

Review that file and look for a setting called password= (hint its easier to do this test if you are remoted into the computer using putty).

Record the password, then from a windows computer, use a ftp client and connect from your windows pc to the FOG server. Login with fog and the password you gleaned from the .fogsettings file.

See if that works. If it does then we need to look back in the webgui for the problem.

I’m just starting this thread as a place to hang typical disk structures for well known operating systems as viewed by linux.

Commands used: gdisk, blkid, (lsblk, pvdisplay, vgdisplay, lvdisplay)

Update: The developers think they have a moderate understanding of what it takes to identify the US English versions of Win10, and Win7. They have asked if you have installs of Windows 10 in your native languages (not US English) that you also participate in this data collection. They really need to see Windows installs in German, French, Spanish, and the Cyrillic countries to get a good understanding of the disk structure. Also they need to see a few versions of OSX to make sure they are fully supported with these new disk identification routines. Hopefully with this new information they can craft a better multi-language solution for single disk resizable imaging. Also for linux, if you hand craft a specific hard drive layout (not using the automated disk provisioning) they would also like you to provide that information too. The better understanding they can get before any code is rewritten the better the final product will be. To get there they need your help with collecting data.

I can say the issues you will run into more often than not is with the hardware.

FOG uses a customized version of linux called FOS. I suspect that FOS will run on even really old (ia32) based hardware. The issue is getting FOS to the target hardware. PXE booting was added to the PC 2001 spec USB booting wasn’t added until circa 2006 (I think). So with these old hardware systems you have to find a way to boot the FOS engine. With some creativity you could boot FOS from a CD drive.

We would have to ask the developers if they still include linux drivers for IDE drives and old nic cards (the 3com 3c503 and 3c509 cards were quite popular).

Really for your task at hand, I might use clonezilla with a portable usb hard drive over FOG for backing up these older systems. There is a lot less overhead and sometimes headache with clonezilla if all you are doing is backing up random systems from around your campus.

@Sebastian-Roth said:

Then you probably need to start from scratch. Install CentOS and probably best make sure you add a good size partition for /images right then. So you don’t have to move things around later on. Then install FOG trunk again.

FWIW: Unless you specifically go into the hard drive layout during centos install Centos 7 will divide the hard drive between the root partition and the /home partition. Not really helpful for an application server configuration. If you are setting up fog on a VM create the initial FOG disk in the 16 to 20GB size, then after centos is installed add a new vmdk file that is 50-100GB and mount this new disk to the /opt directory before you install fog. Then during fog install tell fog to install its images in /opt/fog/images. This will keep all of the big files on the /opt disk without the risk of filling up the root partition on linux.

@gwendallecoz Please add a little bit of detail around your question.

1. Do we understand you have already deploy 20 systems (just a number to show scale of problem) and now you want to go back and change the name on the 20 systems that already have been deployed?
2. You want to name/rename computers as FOG deploys them?
3. Do you have the fog client software installed on these 20 computers?
4. How many computers do you want to rename?

Win10 Fall 2017 upgraded from Win7 Pro

This is the second attempt to collect a bit more information on this same system.
https://forums.fogproject.org/topic/11070/disk-drive-geometry-and-partition-layouts-for-well-know-os/9
The issue I was running into is that the computer was running RAID on intel’s “fake raid” (i.e. hardware assisted software raid). When I collected the data the first time I did not take into account I needed to have the RAID kernel drivers enabled using the kernel parameter mdraid=true as outlined in this tutorial: https://forums.fogproject.org/topic/7882/capture-deploy-to-target-computers-using-intel-rapid-storage-onboard-raid So that explains why I had a hard time understanding the disk structure as it was being presented to FOS. I also discovered (for some unknown reason) when I setup this computer I set the data drive up as raid 0 (striping) and not raid 1 (mirroring) like I thought. Hmmmmm…

So the following info is being generated with the mdraid kernel parameter enabled.

gdisk -l /dev/sda

GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 1.0.0

Partition table scan:
  MBR: MBR only
  BSD: not present
  APM: not present
  GPT: not present


***************************************************************
Found invalid GPT and valid MBR; converting MBR to GPT format
in memory. 
***************************************************************


Warning! Secondary partition table overlaps the last partition by
468849521 blocks!
You will need to delete this partition or resize it in another utility.
Disk /dev/sda: 468862128 sectors, 223.6 GiB
Logical sector size: 512 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): 824735B4-8872-4BDB-A1EB-AD2E1DC47DBF
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 468862094
Partitions will be aligned on 2048-sector boundaries
Total free space is 2014 sectors (1007.0 KiB)

Number  Start (sector)    End (sector)  Size       Code  Name
   1            2048          206847   100.0 MiB   0700  Microsoft basic data
   2          206848       936790015   446.6 GiB   0700  Microsoft basic data
   3       936790016       937711615   450.0 MiB   2700  Windows RE

gdisk -l /dev/md124 (the logical array)

GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 1.0.0

Partition table scan:
  MBR: MBR only
  BSD: not present
  APM: not present
  GPT: not present


***************************************************************
Found invalid GPT and valid MBR; converting MBR to GPT format
in memory. 
***************************************************************

Disk /dev/md124: 937713664 sectors, 447.1 GiB
Logical sector size: 512 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): DD15BBA2-DB04-4CDE-9C39-604AA3A9015F
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 937713630
Partitions will be aligned on 2048-sector boundaries
Total free space is 4029 sectors (2.0 MiB)

Number  Start (sector)    End (sector)  Size       Code  Name
   1            2048          206847   100.0 MiB   0700  Microsoft basic data
   2          206848       936790015   446.6 GiB   0700  Microsoft basic data
   3       936790016       937711615   450.0 MiB   2700  Windows RE

gdisk -l /dev/sdc

GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 1.0.0

Partition table scan:
  MBR: MBR only
  BSD: not present
  APM: not present
  GPT: not present


***************************************************************
Found invalid GPT and valid MBR; converting MBR to GPT format
in memory. 
***************************************************************


Warning! Secondary partition table overlaps the last partition by
976758769 blocks!
You will need to delete this partition or resize it in another utility.
Disk /dev/sdc: 976773168 sectors, 465.8 GiB
Logical sector size: 512 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): 77A3546C-A31D-4134-9E04-681DB01678E1
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 976773134
Partitions will be aligned on 2048-sector boundaries
Total free space is 2014 sectors (1007.0 KiB)

Number  Start (sector)    End (sector)  Size       Code  Name
   1            2048      1953531903   931.5 GiB   0700  Microsoft basic data

gdisk -l /dev/md125 (the logical array)

GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 1.0.0

Partition table scan:
  MBR: MBR only
  BSD: not present
  APM: not present
  GPT: not present


***************************************************************
Found invalid GPT and valid MBR; converting MBR to GPT format
in memory. 
***************************************************************

Disk /dev/md125: 1953536000 sectors, 931.5 GiB
Logical sector size: 512 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): 600AE6A8-463C-4363-BC6A-0B1ED148F3A4
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 1953535966
Partitions will be aligned on 2048-sector boundaries
Total free space is 6077 sectors (3.0 MiB)

Number  Start (sector)    End (sector)  Size       Code  Name
   1            2048      1953531903   931.5 GiB   0700  Microsoft basic data

lsblk

NAME        MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE  MOUNTPOINT
sda           8:0    0 223.6G  0 disk  
`-md124       9:124  0 447.1G  0 raid0 
  |-md124p1 259:0    0   100M  0 md    
  |-md124p2 259:1    0 446.6G  0 md    
  `-md124p3 259:2    0   450M  0 md    
sdb           8:16   0 223.6G  0 disk  
`-md124       9:124  0 447.1G  0 raid0 
  |-md124p1 259:0    0   100M  0 md    
  |-md124p2 259:1    0 446.6G  0 md    
  `-md124p3 259:2    0   450M  0 md    
sdc           8:32   0 465.8G  0 disk  
`-md125       9:125  0 931.5G  0 raid0 
sdd           8:48   0 465.8G  0 disk  
`-md125       9:125  0 931.5G  0 raid0 
sde           8:64   1  29.1G  0 disk  
`-sde1        8:65   1   121M  0 part  

blkid

/dev/ram0: UUID="3db56938-95cb-4bd6-a325-4ba458198604" TYPE="ext2"
/dev/sda: TYPE="isw_raid_member"
/dev/sdb: TYPE="isw_raid_member"
/dev/sdc: TYPE="isw_raid_member"
/dev/sdd: TYPE="isw_raid_member"
/dev/sde1: SEC_TYPE="msdos" LABEL="GRUB" UUID="367A-397D" TYPE="vfat" PARTUUID="dbbe8098-01"
/dev/md125: PTUUID="5816dc85" PTTYPE="dos"
/dev/md124: PTUUID="c657bdb6" PTTYPE="dos"
/dev/md124p1: LABEL="System Reserved" UUID="C6E4AA25E4AA1827" TYPE="ntfs" PARTUUID="c657bdb6-01"
/dev/md124p2: UUID="D02AAB7A2AAB5BEA" TYPE="ntfs" PARTUUID="c657bdb6-02"
/dev/md124p3: UUID="926ACC2A6ACC0D43" TYPE="ntfs" PARTUUID="c657bdb6-03"

Here is some additional information the developers asked me to collect.
mount.ntfs-3g /dev/md124p1 /mnt
`ls -la /mnt’

rwxrwxrwx  1 root root   4096 Oct  1 21:49  .
drwxr-xr-x 18 root root   1024 Nov  9 12:28  ..
-rwxrwxrwx  1 root root      1 Jul 16  2016  BOOTNXT
-rwxrwxrwx  1 root root   8192 Sep 27 14:52  BOOTSECT.BAK
drwxrwxrwx  1 root root   8192 Oct  1 21:49  Boot
drwxrwxrwx  1 root root      0 Feb 22  2014 'Program Files'
drwxrwxrwx  1 root root      0 Feb 22  2014  ProgramData
drwxrwxrwx  1 root root      0 Jul 18  2016  Recovery
drwxrwxrwx  1 root root   4096 Jul 17  2016 'System Volume Information'
-rwxrwxrwx  1 root root 389328 Sep  7 09:23  bootmgr

ls -la /mnt/Boot

drwxrwxrwx 1 root root   8192 Oct  1 21:49 .
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root   4096 Oct  1 21:49 ..
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root  45056 Nov 12  2017 BCD
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root  51200 Jul 18  2016 BCD.LOG
-rwxrwxrwx 2 root root      0 Feb 22  2014 BCD.LOG1
-rwxrwxrwx 2 root root      0 Feb 22  2014 BCD.LOG2
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root  65536 Sep 27 14:52 BOOTSTAT.DAT
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root   4096 Sep 27 14:52 Fonts
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root      0 Sep 27 14:52 Resources
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root      0 Oct  1 21:50 bg-BG
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 101728 Jul 16  2016 bootvhd.dll
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root      0 Oct  1 21:50 cs-CZ
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root      0 Oct  1 21:50 da-DK
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root      0 Oct  1 21:50 de-DE
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root      0 Oct  1 21:50 el-GR
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root      0 Oct  1 21:50 en-GB
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root      0 Oct  1 21:50 en-US
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root   4096 Oct  1 21:50 es-ES
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root      0 Oct  1 21:50 es-MX
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root      0 Oct  1 21:50 et-EE
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root      0 Oct  1 21:50 fi-FI
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root      0 Oct  1 21:50 fr-CA
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root      0 Oct  1 21:50 fr-FR
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root      0 Oct  1 21:50 hr-HR
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root      0 Oct  1 21:50 hu-HU
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root      0 Oct  1 21:50 it-IT
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root      0 Oct  1 21:50 ja-JP
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root      0 Oct  1 21:50 ko-KR
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root      0 Oct  1 21:50 lt-LT
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root      0 Oct  1 21:50 lv-LV
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 806752 Sep  7 06:29 memtest.exe
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root      0 Oct  1 21:50 nb-NO
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root      0 Oct  1 21:50 nl-NL
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root      0 Oct  1 21:50 pl-PL
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root      0 Oct  1 21:50 pt-BR
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root      0 Oct  1 21:50 pt-PT
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root      0 Oct  1 21:50 qps-ploc
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root      0 Oct  1 21:50 ro-RO
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root      0 Oct  1 21:50 ru-RU
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root      0 Oct  1 21:50 sk-SK
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root      0 Oct  1 21:50 sl-SI
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root      0 Oct  1 21:50 sr-Latn-CS
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root      0 Oct  1 21:50 sr-Latn-RS
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root      0 Oct  1 21:50 sv-SE
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root      0 Oct  1 21:50 tr-TR
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root      0 Oct  1 21:50 uk-UA
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root      0 Oct  1 21:50 zh-CN
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root      0 Oct  1 21:50 zh-HK
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root      0 Oct  1 21:50 zh-TW

ls -la /mnt/Recovery

drwxrwxrwx 1 root root    0 Jul 18  2016 .
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root 4096 Oct  1 21:49 ..
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root    0 Jul 18  2016 Logs

mount.ntfs-3g /dev/md124p3 /mnt
ls -la /mnt

drwxrwxrwx  1 root root 4096 Sep 27 19:10  .
drwxr-xr-x 18 root root 1024 Nov  9 12:28  ..
drwxrwxrwx  1 root root    0 Sep 27 19:10  Recovery
drwxrwxrwx  1 root root    0 Jul 18  2016 'System Volume Information'

ls -la /mnt/Recovery/WindowsRE/

drwxrwxrwx 1 root root         0 Sep 27 15:31 .
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root         0 Sep 27 19:10 ..
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root      1061 Sep 27 15:31 ReAgent.xml
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 340406344 Sep 27 19:10 Winre.wim
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root   3170304 Jul 16  2016 boot.sdi

Here is what the disk geometry looks like from within windows
<insert picture here>

There are several documents that will get you started.
https://wiki.fogproject.org/wiki/index.php?title=CentOS_7

It is now recommended that you change selinux setting to permissive and not disabled as it appears in some documentation. Also if you need to leave the firewall enabled you can do that. The developers has provided some guidance on what firewalld rules need to be configured. Or you can just disable the firewalld service as outlined in the docs. Its also best practices to create a new vmdk (virtual disk) for your images and then mount the new vmdk onto the root partition over the /images directory. I have a document on doing that if you need.

At its most basic step its just installing centos 7 selecting bare minimum configuration, then installing wget, git, and then downloading the fog installers.

This one is a bit dated and created by some third party, but the steps are almost the same today: http://blog.ibuddy.info/index.php/2015/06/fog-v-1-3-on-centos-7-full-install-guide/

@ManofValor I know its probably too late, but I would have done the /opt mount point instead of /opt/fog/images. That way all of the opt stuff would go into that 400GiB drive. What you won’t get is /opt/fog/snapins that will still go onto the root partition. Sorry I was late, stuck in a teleconf call for 2 hours.

Typically this is the function of dns/dhcp server. I can tell you that fog does not do this or have this feature.

Can you tell me a bit more of why you can not resolve your target computer’s via DNS? What device is your dhcp/dns servers?

@wayne-workman According to the EULA you must install OEM images using the vendor supplied OEM media only. You can use FOG to PXE boot an OEM image for deployment, but you can NOT clone an existing OEM system using any deployment solution.

My friend Chris over on the Spiceworks Community wrote a article about reimaging rights. What is allowed and what isn’t. While this one is from 2015 MS hasn’t changed the rules in regards to what you can do.

Ref: https://community.spiceworks.com/how_to/124056-reimaging-rights-for-windows-10-licensing-how-to

But in regards to the OP’s post, he is right on the / vs -. Its more common and generally accepted by applications to use the forward slash. Many application also except the minus key switch. Us lazy linux guys probably just used the minus key switch because that is what unix expects. I don’t have a windows system handy to see if shutdown accepts both or only the forward slash.

As for the unattend.xml, it is a pretty good one. We from time to time have people ask for a generic unattend.xml file so uploading it to the wiki may not be a bad idea, just be aware its currently configured for The Netherlands in the internationalization bits. The rest are OK.

@Foaming My opinion would be to always build a new box and then copy over your images. This gives you the most up to date OS as well as a clean build of FOG.

@StevenT Not to add confusion here. But do you have a single image you are deploying to the XE2 and the other Dell computers? The question is, is the issue specific to deploying to the XE2 from a common image or if you capture the image from an XE2 does it deploy to a standard dell? Its not clear how you deploy images.

Realize I have to be “that guy” here. Your request is outside of the scope of FOG imaging. It is not specifically supported by the developers of FOG.

With that said, FOG is flexible enough to allow you to do this. Here is an outline and structure of what is needed: https://forums.fogproject.org/topic/10944/using-fog-to-pxe-boot-into-your-favorite-installer-images

Understand that FOG iPXE is only used to deliver the boot kernel to the target computer. The boot kernel has to be aware to support network booting. If the boot kernel expects to find a local CDROM then booting will fail over the network.

Maybe include what you are trying to network boot and we can tell you if its possible.