[B]EDIT[/B] - [I]Because I was bone idle when I put this on here I omitted the links from the text, I did include them in the downloaded version though, however because a few people have been asking about the links. I have now fixed them in this tutorial! Sorry about that :)[/I]

This guide has been pieced together from a multitude of sources across the internet then adjusted to be in-line hopefully with the current FOG version of 1.2.0. I can’t take credit for the information in here, people who have struggled before me have provided all this information to help. As I have worked on my initial implementation of the FOG environment I found the resources and write-ups from the various groups extremely valuable. While much of this information exists already, it was spread across a number of sources and required numerous cross references to make my installation function to the level it has. I have tested my universal image across numerous PC’s and laptops of differing makes and model and so far it has worked flawlessly every time.

This is a write-up to provide guidance on the installation of an Ubuntu Server OS, the FOG (Free Open-Source Ghost) imaging software, configuring FOG, then creating and deploying hardware independent images.

This tutorial is divided into the following sections
[LIST]
[]· Installing Ubuntu Server
[]· Configuring and Updating Ubuntu Server
[]· Installing FOG Software
[]· Configuring your FOG Installation
[]· Workstation Universal Image Creation
[]· Uploading Your Reference Image to FOG
[/LIST]
I’d like to give a nod to the Ubuntu Forums, the FOG Project community, the DriverPacks.net Team and the Spiceworks Community.
[LIST]
[]· FogProject
[]· Ubuntu Forums
[]· Spiceworks Community
[]· Driverpacks
[/LIST]
What I’ve hoped to accomplish is provide a one-stop resource for FOG installation guidance as well as a number of tweaks I’ve made to increase efficiency. I can’t guarantee that every option I’ve used will be the best option for your environment, so I highly encourage a test environment that allows you to make any necessary tweaks before a full roll out. If you notice any errors in the document or have suggestions for improvement, please feel free to correct me/comment.

[B]INSTALLING UBUNTU SERVER:[/B]
[LIST=1]
[]Go to [URL=‘http://www.ubuntu.com’]http://ubuntu.com[/URL] . Click Download -> Ubuntu Server and for best results pick the LTS distribution. If you’d prefer a GUI you can utilize the desktop system, but I’m breaking down line by line commands for the server CLI so it won’t be necessary. (I used 10.04 LTS but that’s due to my server hardware more than anything. That said FOG has installed and worked flawlessly on this release)
[]Preferably create a VM, otherwise this can be installed on physical hardware.
[/LIST]
[LIST]
[]Minimum of 512MB of RAM, usage is low on the server OS.
[]Minimum 1 NIC, preferably Gigabit connectivity.
[]If using VLANS, be sure to set the VM in a network that can both route and broadcast to necessary client machines.
[/LIST]
[LIST]
[][B]NOTE[/B] To utilise FOG across subnets/VLANS you must insure that IGMP Multicast is enabled across your switches!!
[/LIST]
3. Leave the Ubuntu install settings at defaults, when it asks you to add packages select none. We’re looking for a JEOS installation (Just Enough Operating System) the less extraneous software this box runs the better.
4. When it prompts you to create the user account, set it to whatever you want. I used FogUser. Realise that Linux logons are case sensitive for username and MAKE SURE TO WRITE DOWN YOUR CONFIGURED USER INFORMATION!!!
5. Now wait for the server to reboot.

Congratulations! You’ve now installed Ubuntu! We’ll step through configuring the server OS for usage and making sure all necessary packages and updates are installed.

[B]CONFIGURING AND UPDATING UBUNTU SERVER:[/B]

6. Logon with the credentials you configured.
7. First we want to set the IP of the server so that it doesn’t require DHCP and that DNS is properly configured.
   • Type sudo vi /etc/network/interfaces
   • Press Insert and navigate through the file with the arrow keys.
   i. Using your environments IP schema configure it per my example. Italics are lines that need to be added. [I]NOTE Included IPs are examples only and will vary for your deployment![/I]

[FONT=Courier New]1.#The loopback network interface[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]2.auto lo[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]3.iface lo inet loopback[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]4.[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]5.#The primary network interface[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]6.auto eth0[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]7.iface eth0 inet [B][I]static### Set to static IP[/I][/B][/FONT]
[B][I][FONT=Courier New]8.address 192.168.1.5[/FONT][/I][/B]
[B][I][FONT=Courier New]9.netmask 255.255.255.0[/FONT][/I][/B]
[B][I][FONT=Courier New]10.gateway 192.168.1.1[/FONT][/I][/B]
[B][I][FONT=Courier New]11.network 192.168.1.0[/FONT][/I][/B]
[B][I][FONT=Courier New]12.broadcast 192.168.1.255[/FONT][/I][/B]
[B][I][FONT=Courier New]13.dns-domain example.org ## Your internalDomain Name[/FONT][/I][/B]
[B][I][FONT=Courier New]14.dns-search example.org[/FONT][/I][/B]
[B][I][FONT=Courier New]15.dns-nameservers 192.168.5.3 192.168.5.4## enter your DNS server[/FONT][/I][/B]
[CENTER][B][I][U][FONT=Courier New]addressesseparatedbya space[/FONT][/U][/I][/B][/CENTER]

• Also, if you are using a proxy that requires authentication you will need to allow open access for the FOG server. Depending on your configuration it may be difficult getting Ubuntu to authenticate properly.
8. At the command line type the following commands.
• sudo apt-get update
• sudo apt-get upgrade
• This will find any necessary updates and upgrade any packages that need it
9. Restart the server if necessary. (sudo shutdown –r now)
10. Now that networking and server updates are taken care of, we are ready to begin installing the FOG software.

[url=“/_imported_xf_attachments/1/1211_Implementing_FOG_with_Universal_Windows_7.pdf?:”]Implementing_FOG_with_Universal_Windows_7.pdf[/url]

Hey,

Okay so I’m updating this so that any other users hitting this problem under these circumstances can hopefully get to a resolution.

So it turns out that the problem is my self signed certificate. So I added the cert to the ca-certificate store and included it as trusted. This had no effect. SVN and Git methods were still rejected. In fact SVN just hangs. So tried SVN with --non-interactive --trust-server-cert options and it still refused to connect.

In the end I worked round Git by running the following command to configure it to basically not verify SSL certs:

git config --global http.sslVerify false

This actually worked in that it allowed me to clone the Git repo. Success, or so I thought

I ran the install from the cloned repo and hit a different error:

• Adding needed repository…/lib/common/functions.sh: line 456: /var/log/fog_error_5937.log: No such file or directory
  …/lib/common/functions.sh: line 457: /var/log/fog_error_5937.log: No such file or directory
  …/lib/common/functions.sh: line 458: /var/log/fog_error_5937.log: No such file or directory
  …/lib/common/functions.sh: line 460: /var/log/fog_error_5937.log: No such file or directory
  …/lib/common/functions.sh: line 461: /var/log/fog_error_5937.log: No such file or directory
  …/lib/common/functions.sh: line 462: /var/log/fog_error_5937.log: No such file or directory
  …/lib/common/functions.sh: line 463: /var/log/fog_error_5937.log: No such file or directory
  …/lib/common/functions.sh: line 464: /var/log/fog_error_5937.log: No such file or directory
  Failed!

So any ideas on this one?

Cheers!

Sully

PS: Thanks for all your efforts so far with this one Tom. Well beyond the call of duty mate. Nice one.

Hi Guys,

I know this has come up before and I have trawled the forum and the internet in general looking for answers before I took to posting this issue again so apologies if this a bit like a broken record. Unfortunately none of the proposed solutions have resolved the issue.

Heres the thing, I am trying to install FOG 1.3.0 SVN trunk onto my Ubuntu 14.04.2 server so that I can test it with Windows 10 deployments ready for this years refresh. I am hitting the error at the beginning of the install of FOG that states - Adding Needed Repository… Failed!

The server is a clean Ubuntu 14.04.2 install running as a VM on VMware. It has already been operating as a web server so has Apache and MySQL already setup on it. Not sure if this is the issue? I have installed python-software-properties and software-properties-common. I am not behind a proxy. I used the wget method to retrieve the trunk as I was getting issues with SVN due to a self signed certificate on my firewall.

Anyone got any ideas?

Much appreciated

Sully

Why don’t you save yourself a headache and just set FOG up the way it was intended then pass the DHCP option settings to whoever does have access to the DHCP server to configure. (Assuming you’re using a third party DHCP server from your original post) That way you wont have to faff on with this and you can have a fab fog server running peachy like

Sorry about the links, I’ve fixed all these in the tutorial now. Only took me 4 months to get round to it lol

Hi
You are quite correct I did gloss over that a bit, sorry. Basically, I saved the unattend.xml file on to a shared drive/folder on my network. You just install windows as you normally do either with a disc or mounted ISO in a VM. I would always use a VM btw unless there really is a reason not to. Snapshots are the key Now, because your VM/machine will also be on your network in order to pull an image from it, you just access the shared drive where you saved the unattend.xml file from the VM and drag into the \System32\SysPrep folder as described in the walkthrough. Thats all it is, no need to modify any ISO’s.

Good call on the WAIK tip, something else to note with that is that I found it wouldn’t let me create a 32 bit answer file on a 64 bit machine and vice versa either. Gotta love Microsoft.

Good Luck

I used Oracle virtualbox. Free and works perfectly every time

If your settings are correct as per Toms suggestion you could try restarting tftpd on the fog server. I’ve found that sometimes cures it. But only if you dhcp configuration is correct first.

Hi Paul

Check the changelog on the WIKI - [url]http://www.fogproject.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page[/url]

Windows 8 support since FOG 1.0.0

Hope this helps

[quote=“prince xyryl, post: 34283, member: 25316”]And i can deploy the image in multiple destination pc all at once right?

I have server2008r2 domain, pfsense router firewall, win7 and win8 on i3 and athlon, xp on pentium4 celeron[/quote]

Yes you can run multiple tasks and deploy different image types simultaneously. You will need to build a different image for each OS of course but you can set up your machine groups in FOG and then push each image out to each group. Make sure when you set FOG up that you don’t allow it to be used as a DHCP server and that your DCHP options 66 and 67 on your Windows DHCP server are set correctly or iPXE wont boot. This is all covered in the guide I linked earlier

Hi

You already mentioned that you use VAMT for licensing, so depending on whether you use KMS or MAK keys for your install you will still use VAMT. Just supply either your KMS or MAK key in the unattend.xml file you’ll create while building your image and then once the machines are imaged you will licence them. KMS machines should in most cases check in with the KMS server that VAMT is running on and then license themselves, if your using MAK keys then you may need to use VAMT to perform an online validation en-masse. Depends on your setup, but due to the volume of PC’s we have here I use KMS. Simplifies everything a bit

Hope this helps

Cheers