Posts made by jfernandz

First of all, sorry for resurrecting this old thread. However … I was experiencing this issue with HP machines with BIOS U62 Ver.01.01.21 07/01/2024.

The only way I was able to workaround the issue is by using refind binaries from FOG 1.5.5 as @PeterL says in their answer:

@PeterL said in REFInd-Initializing - hangs:

Your issue with rEFInd is because of HPs EFI.
I have exactly the same issue with ProDesk 400 for quite some time.
The workaround to get those systems booting via rEFInd was a downgrade of the rEFInd binaries.

For me a downgrade to rEFInd out of the FOG 1.5.5 package did the trick.

FOG 1.5.5

Path in the ZIP archive: fogproject-1.5.5.zip\fogproject-1.5.5\packages\web\service\ipxe\refind.efi

The binary is dated 15.11.2018

On a Debian system place the file in /var/www/html/fog/service/ipxe
Once as “refind.efi” and a second time as “refind_x64.efi”.

But I’ve tried with latest rEFInd version from sourceforge as @george1421 points in their answer

@george1421 said in REFInd-Initializing - hangs:

@peterl FWIW the refind files can be located here: https://sourceforge.net/projects/refind/files/

For a very log time FOG shipped with 0.11.0 version of refind. This was a very stable, but old release. Based on the image date you referenced that must be the 0.11.4 release of refind. You might also want to try 0.13.2 (newest at the time of writing). To see if the very latest version of refind works for you.

but even this latest version isn’t able to boot the EFI partition from the internal disk. So weird, not sure how may I help to diagnose this issue for rEFInd project … but I’d like to help. Can’t find a way to increase verbosity for rEFInd despite I’ve tried some config directives in refind.conf

Thank you for this helpful post guys

@george1421 oh, that will be our best alternative for now, sure Anyway I was just trying to think in some possible feature FOG client could implement regarding this, maybe I’ll be willing in the future to contribute to the project though not sure right now if Suspend-Bitlocker will require some kind of authentication

@george1421 than you for your answer, you’re always willing to help

What about the point of implementing, for example, Suspend-BitLocker in the FOG client side?

The TPM point is a good one, but … almost all machines we work with have an “easily” accessible/replaceable TPM hardware module, could just we restore some disk image in a new machine with the TPM of the old one? Would this work?

I’ve noticed available tools for image managin (partclone and partimage) aren’t able to take an image of a disk with BitLocker enabled, I’ve seen that you could use manage-bde in CMD or Disable-BitLocker/Suspend-BitLocker to disable temporarily BitLocker and take the image. However I’m wondering if this process might be automated by the FOG client or I could provide FOG my BitLocker recovery key to make this process of take images of encrypted disk more automatic.

Thank you very much

Not sure why setting the LDAP plugin manually I couldn’t get it working … but I exported the plugin config from an old FOG instance and imported it in the new one and it worked, so I think you can mark this as solved

I’ve noticed for my purpose I should use the LDAP plugin, however, and despite I think I’ve set it properly … I can’t login as the user I’d like.

How might I debug this? Is there some specific log for this?

Hi everyone, I’m interested in connecting FOG to my DC (Active Directory) to be able to login in the FOG web UI using user/credentials from my AD (and just this), However … not sure if this section (Active Directory Defaults) in FOG Configuration -> FOG Settings is actually for this purpose … or this is intended for a different purpose (as I can see in here).

According to the link I pasted “FOG has the ability to register a host with Active Directory, in a limited sense.”, but I’m not interested in this feature, just the point I’ve talked about (FOG web UI login using my AD users), Is this even possible?

Thank you all!!

So … do you mean when you use the firmware’s boot menu and choose the deployed OS bootloader … it won’t boot?

I’m guessing you’re probably confused because of you had to set the PXE as first boot option … so every time the PC boots … It will fetch FOG through PXE. You can of course set again as first boot option your OS … but that would mean FOG wouldn’t boot first … so when you create a task to take an image … this won’t be done till you boot FOG from PXE manually or set again PXE as first boot option.

In the end … that’s how FOG works

@SaturTP said in Client hangs at EFI stub::

@rodluz @sgilbe Hi, I just found a workarround.

Disabling Virtualization, VTx and VTd makes it boot with every kernel at least in my case.

I can confirm just disabling VT the kernel boots , thank you @SaturTP

@george1421 oh, sure, I know the purpose of dbx.esl file, and sure … I guess it’s optional because usually you won’t need/want to include any certificate in your custom dbx.esl so you’re not even generating it … But if you’re not generating it … I don’t see necessary to explicitly include that mv in the guide, at least … I’d write explicitly that step is optional and it depends on you have generated the dbx.esl

But again … it’s up to you

@george1421 well, after some tests … The problem is apparently I have to sign also the refind_x64.efi binary, not sure if refind.efi is actually loading refind_x64.efi … but I’d suggest also to include this point in your tutorial. In fact I’m guessing you should also sign refind_ia32.efi and refind_aa64.efi as your whole environment could include also another archs.

Not sure if you’ll edit your tutorial with my suggestions … but I’ll write a little document for myself also … I think the signing process (with sbsign) may be automated in a bash script with a for loop, but your tutorial is still very valuable and helpful. This would be just a minor improvement. However … I think I’m going to write some script to try to automate the whole process, I could send it to you if you are interested in

Thank you again @george1421 and I hope you find also useful my suggestions

Hi @george1421! Thank you for your answer

Well, I think the very same, so not sure if I should repeat the whole process (including FOG initial deployment/install), but sure, this wouldn’t seem a SecureBoot problem if it weren’t because of this setting in the firmware

I can see your firmware hasn’t that Secure Boot submenu, so … not sure how this could be interfering … but I’m having this issue when I set this in Deployed Mode. However, Audit Mode works as I expect, and … according to the description in my screenshot I’d say the proper value for production is Deployed Mode, and this should work in a very similar way Audit Mode does.

So not sure if this has something to do with some kind of network misconfiguration.

The most important fixes I’d suggest to your tutorial are the following, btw:

• You actually don’t need to mv dbx.esl dbx-fog.esl as you are not generating any dbx.esl, you cannot even run that command successfully as dbx.esl file doesn’t exist
• Also the param chain tftp:/${fog-ip}/EnrollKeys.efi for fog.keyenroll should actually be chain tftp://${fog-ip}/EnrollKeys.efi

Aside this … the tutorial is so helpful so … congratulations @george1421 and thank you a lot for your answer again.

Hi everyone,

I’ve been trying to follow this awesome tutorial (thank you to @george1421, btw ) because it looks promising, and I’ve got my setup partially working as I’m able to boot iPXE and refind, I’m even able to take an image of my added host, I’m able even to boot Windows from the firmware boot menu… However… the default entry in refind (“Boot from hard disk”) is not working, not sure what’s actually running this entry, … but it’s not able to boot the actual hard disk. In fact it has a weird behavior … because apparently that entry is trying to load refind, but you can see in this video it’s not able to fetch refind.conf.

Anyway … I’m a little bit confused … because if I press s to get into de iPXE shell, and run manually

imgfetch http://<my-fog-ip>/fog/service/ipxe/refind.conf
chain -ar http://<my-fog-ip>/fog/service/ipxe/refind_x64.efi

It seems to work… but I have again the very same menu. So … some idea about what could be happening or how may I debug this behavior?

Thank you very much!

PS: I’d suggest some minor fixes for @george1421 tutorial, but it’s a closed topic … so not sure if those might be fixed

Well, first of all … I’m sorry for getting up this old post.

Secondly … I’ve been reading some posts on this forum … and I’ve found this one which I think it’s very interesting to be linked in here (not sure if you’ve linked it yet, but I’d say I can’t see the link anywhere).

After researching a little bit more about this topic … I’ve found this project … which not sure if it could be interesting also. What do you think? Could this make easier the process described in @george1421’s tutorial?

Thank you guys, and so sorry again because I’ve created a new topic instead replying in here maybe some mod can remove it

I’m having the very same problem but with automatic registration processes (quick and full) from the FOG’s grub menu.

I’d say the problem is actually the ‘/var/lock’ folder as it makes no sense to me that ‘touch’ cannot create a file, so I’m guessing it’s the actual path what doesn’t exist. But where? … the path exists in the FOG server so … not sure where should this path be created …

I’d appreciate some help from FOG devs