Posts made by JJ Fullmer

@IT-MAN
Where are you capturing your image and are you using sysprep to generalize the image without any drivers?

The only way for driver injection to work on the windows side automatically is to use sysprep via an unattend.xml. Well I guess technically setupcomplete.cmd may run after setup without it according to https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufacture/desktop/add-a-custom-script-to-windows-setup?view=windows-11 but utilize sysprep and an unattend.xml is far more robust.

It is possible to inject just the driver files into the disk in a post download script but without sysprep to kick it off, you can run into issues.

This requires capturing your image with sysprep and an unattend.xml. One thing you can do with unattend.xml is remove the drivers from the image so that conflicting drivers don’t exist, then you can add the pnputil portion in the specialize phase of sysprep.

This post is what I used and I added some of what I’ve done on top of it that may be of help.

https://forums.fogproject.org/topic/8889/fog-post-install-script-for-win-driver-injection
Also this one
https://forums.fogproject.org/topic/7740/the-magical-mystical-fog-post-download-script

At a high level, driver injection being dynamic per model has some assumptions

• You captured an image that doesn’t have model specific drivers (this is easiest when capturing from a VM and using sysprep)
• You have drivers organized within your /images nfs share
• You have a postdownload script that detects the model, finds the drivers, mounts the windows disk, and then injects them into a known path
• You have a method to kick off a script that installs the drivers into windows
  • For example, I have a synchronouscommand in my specialize phase of my unattend that runs pnputil against the injected path, so drivers are loaded as early as possible in the process

@alexpolytech94 I’m still a bit confused. So have you had working images with fog in the past and they suddenly stopped working?

@paranoid64 Technically the menu is just ipxe, but when capturing or deploying images, getting hardware inventory, stuff like that you’re booting into fos which is in the kernel and init.
You can manually make a backup of the old kernel and init that can be just as easily restored. I believe in working-1.6 this happens automatically but to be safe you can just run this on your fog server linux terminal

sudo mv /var/www/html/fog/service/ipxe/bzImage /var/www/html/fog/service/ipxe/bzImage.old
sudo mv /var/www/html/fog/service/ipxe/init.xz /var/www/html/fog/service/ipxe/init.xz.old

To revert you can simply reverse those like this

sudo mv -f /var/www/html/fog/service/ipxe/bzImage.old /var/www/html/fog/service/ipxe/bzImage
sudo mv -f /var/www/html/fog/service/ipxe/init.xz.old /var/www/html/fog/service/ipxe/init.xz

You can also name the new kernels different and specify a different kernel per host, but since this is happening before registration is recognized, it’ll be better to update globally to test it out. I am currently using the ‘experimental’ kernels in production with 0 issues.

Another thing to look at is some log files.
See if you have anything helpful in /var/log/php-fpm/www-error.log and post it here

@alessandro19884 Is that working-1.6? I would update your fog server, that error should be fixed in the latest version.

@paranoid64 Can you add the macs of the 4 intel lan ports to the host in the web ui? One of those macs may be being used to query the host. It should be able to see all of them and find the match but something is off.

You could try updating to the latest experimental kernel and init. If you update to the dev-branch or working-1.6 branch you can update the init in the web GUI or you can do it manually by downloading it from https://github.com/FOGProject/fos/releases and putting the init.xz on your server manually.
See also https://docs.fogproject.org/en/latest/manual-kernel-upgrade
The reason that might help is we recently added functionality for better handling of pass-thru macs. That’s not quite the case here, as it’s mostly for laptops that require a USB ethernet adapter to pxe boot, enabling mac address passthru in the bios/firmware of such systems now works as intended within fog with the new kernel and init as it will find the correct mac when there’s a passthru mac, but the new behavior may also benefit you here.

@steveballantyne Did you also update the Kernel and Init? What version fo FOG are you on?

@alexpolytech94

Firstly what version of Fog are you on?

Also are you saying that your images disappeared overnight? Or are you saying you can’t create just an image object in the web UI to then capture to?
We need a little more information and context I think

So this will not work for a few reasons, but it is possible to use windows.

Why it won’t work

When you boot into fog (FOS - Fog Operating System) it has loaded on the client machine.
The client machine then mounts an nfs share to upload/download an image from.
If your nfs share is pointing to another file share, the client only has access to the first NFS share, nfs won’t share out that smb share. I once tried to do something similar in a subfolder of /images for drivers. It has to be local.

However, it is possible to create a storage node that is just an nfs share, and you can create an nfs share on a windows machine (preferably a windows server install).

We need to update the this doc still to be in the fog docs site and to apply to newer versions of windows but the general principles outlined in this wiki article https://wiki.fogproject.org/wiki/index.php?title=Windows_Storage_Node should still apply.

Essentially you need to

• Add the nfs server feature/role to the windows machine
• Create an nfs share on windows
• add a storage node definition in fog that points to the windows nfs share (see also https://docs.fogproject.org/en/latest/storage-node for info on storage nodes in general)
• there are some other steps to ensure you capture to the storage node as you configure the storage group/node that I don’t recall off the top of my head

@Rudolf So Fog can do what you want there’s just a few steps you skipped.

Fog will essentially do the same idea of copying the SSD from one to another but in a more centralized manner with more customization capability.

Basically, you need to

• Install and configure the OS on a Virtual or Physical machine (virtual is easier to maintain if you already have a virtual infrastructure)
• Capture the image of that machine with fog
• Deploy the image to hosts

See https://docs.fogproject.org/en/latest/capture-an-image and https://docs.fogproject.org/en/latest/intro for some more info.

You can also expand further with customization of how you update your reference image, with windows there’s sysprep and other tools to help create a reference image, I’m sure linux has tools as well, I’m just not as well versed in them.

You can also edit the fog pxe menu to boot to an iso, I’m sure we have some examples in the forum for that.
There are also pre/post scripts so you can have a linux bash script that runs after an image is complete to do further customization of the image.

It sounds like Fog is the tool that will do what you’re trying to do, there’s just a bit more setup.

@Mr_____T I would also agree with @Tom-Elliott that the proxy dhcp with dnsmasq is the way to go. Especially with a router from your isp like that, it’s unlikely you’d be able to set those settings. I have seen the needed DHCP options on my Asus router at home but haven’t played with that just yet.

If you get us the particulars on that failure (error message, deploy or capture, os being deployed/captured, etc) we will gladly help with that too.

@Rudolf The output you have here shows the imgpath it’s looking for is /images/cinema/cinema.iso the deployed image should not be an ios, or is that just what you named your image?
Are you able to deploy other images?

@xirrax We are happy to help but we need a bit more information.

What version of FOG are you running?
Are you able to capture images from other devices?
If yes, is there something different about this device?
What OS are you capturing?
Is there anything special about the partitions of this image?
What messages do you see before you see this error? We need to know what point in the process this is happening.

The error is saying it can’t mount partition 3, can you boot this host into fog and run the compatibility tool? Let us know what it says under disk and other options?

@Tom-Elliott said in HP Z8 Fury G5 Workstation Desktop PXE boot:

@alessandro19884 Can you change your bootfile from snponly.efi to ipxe.efi and see if that works better?

This is the other thing I was going to suggest

@alessandro19884 After you updated to fog 1.6, you’d want to re-do the download of the latest kernel and init.
Working 1.6 will already have the latest ipxe pull.

I’d suggest this kernel

And this init

@alessandro19884 That model and setup should work on 1.5.10 as I recall. We have lots of Z2 Gx machines.
I would suggest for sure updating to the latest kernel and init as @george1421 mentioned. This sounds like a driver issue within fos

For 1.5.10 you should be able to download the latest experimental bzImage kernel from the fog kernel update screen under configuration.
You’ll have to update the init manually, there’s a doc on that here: https://docs.fogproject.org/en/latest/manual-kernel-upgrade

If you don’t want to do the ipxe compile yourself you could also give the working-1.6 branch a try as it has the latest pull of ipxe. It’s a new web UI too.
See https://docs.fogproject.org/en/latest/installation/server/install-fog-server/#choosing-a-fog-version for info on selecting a git branch to upgrade from.

The latest versions of the dev-branch and working-1.6 also both have a GUI for the init.xz updates.

Also as far as logs to check, there is a logviewer in the fog configuration menu that is very helpful.

Some locations of logs with potentially helpful info:

/opt/fog/log #various logs here
/var/log/php-fpm/www-error.log

@george1421 https://docs.fogproject.org/en/latest/compile_ipxe_binaries
Just throwing in the permalink to the doc on this process.

@EuroEnglish I haven’t been able to recreate the issue. I would suggest maybe trying an update to the kernel and init, if you’re on the latest dev-branch version there should be a July 5th dated bzImage and Init available from the fog configuration kernel update and init update menus.
The only other things I can think of might be your Windows 11 partition layout being non standard or something? It should all be booted into RAM at that point though, so that doesn’t make much sense, but it’s possible that the efi partition is too small or something, that’s just a hairbrained theory though. Other thing could be a custom background image? Maybe it stops liking the size of it?

Hopefully trying the newer kernel just solves the problem though.

@EuroEnglish Sorry I’ve been away on vacation on and off the last week.
I will try to recreate this on my setup but I am running Fog 1.6 (you can try it out too by checking out the ‘working-1.6’ branch instead of the dev branch).
And I am using a newer kernel and init. Once of the features of the newest kernel and init is support mac address pass-thru properly, but if you’re not actually registering the hosts, this won’t make much difference, it could still give you some benefit though.

We have a spare L13 or L390 laptop and such so I will test having it have win 11 loaded and being unregistered and see what happens.

@EuroEnglish I have not experienced this issue at all as I’ve upgraded machines to windows 11. I even have a few L13 yogas, and they aren’t doing this.

What version of Fog are you running?

What version of ipxe your fog is running? (The version displays when booting to pxe like iPxe 1.2.1 or something like that)

Also, are you saying it’s slow in the actual fog pxe menu or getting into the pxe menu? Sounds like that actual menu yeah? Like you’ve booted to fog via pxe and see the menu, when trying to select an option on a registered host it freezes up?

What kind of adapter are you using to get the L13 to boot to pxe? USB-C? The special lenovo proprietary adapter?

Do you have mac address pass-thru enabled in the bios?

What version of the FOS kernel/init are you using. You can find this in the Fog GUI under configuration I believe, if you have a recent enough version.

@professorb24 If they are routable, you need to make sure the DHCP options are set for both vlans/scopes.
If you can give more info on what is and isn’t working we can give you more directed help.
Like do you have it working in 1 of the 2 vlans?