Posts made by MikeoftheLibrary

I know this topic has been covered before, but none of the other solutions have helped. So here goes.

The situation is that we are in the process of migrating from FOG .32 to version 1.2.0. Due to the amount of changes between versions, we made the decision to perform a fresh install on a different computer. So our new FOG server is running Debian 7.6 and is an Optiplex 780. The program installed fine and I was able to import the hosts and copy over the image files.

However PXE boot does not work. The clients connect to the DHCP server (which is the same as the FOG server for testing purposes) and receive an address. The word “TFTP” comes up and then the PXE boot agent exits. The FOG menu does not appear. Tftp from within Windows fails with a “Timeout Connect Request Failed” error. However it does work on the server

We’re testing the server on an isolated network consisting of three Optiplex 780s (one of which is the server) and an unmanaged Netgear Pro-Safe 8 port switch. The FOG server is setup to provide DHCP although I did not install isc-dhcp using the FOG installer, but did so separately. You see the first time I tried to install DHCP, I reran the FOG installer and then apache wouldn’t start. Rather than troubleshooting, I simply restored from a backup.

I have taken the following steps to troubleshoot:
[LIST=1]
[]Changed the permission of the /tftpboot directory to 755 and then 777. The ownership is fog:root
[]Added filename “undionly.kpxe” to the DHCP config file.
[]Restarted both tftpd-hpa and isc-dhcp-server.
[]The server does not have a firewall, although I checked and iptables is not running
[*]I could not find SELinux and so assume it is either not running or not installed
[/LIST]
My only guess is the DHCP config file is wrong. As I said before I installed isc-dhcp separately and also setup the config file myself. It is attached as is a short packet capture session made with WireShark. Any help would be much appreciated.

[url=“/_imported_xf_attachments/1/1314_fog_test.pcapng.txt?:”]fog_test.pcapng.txt[/url][url=“/_imported_xf_attachments/1/1315_dhcpd.conf.txt?:”]dhcpd.conf.txt[/url]

I second using WAIK. It is alot easier than creating an Unattend file by hand. This tutorial helped me out quite a bit: [url]http://theitbros.com/sysprep-a-windows-7-machine-–-start-to-finish/[/url] .

As for activation, that is a tricky issue. My institution uses a KMS server. Somewhere I read that newer machines have the activation key hardwired into the computer somewhere. However that may only be for UEFI installations. If your computers do not have an activation code on the outside and they came with Windows pre-loaded then they key might be in the machine. That being the case any valid copy of Windows is supposed to work without having to enter a product key.

So if my thinking is correct you should be able to simply image the computer and Windows will pull the product key automatically from where ever it is stored. My laptop worked like that. I reinstalled Windows and it never asked me for a product key, but still worked. However I am not sure how that would affect you Unattend file. The only other solution is to create a separate Unattend file for each computer with the product key for that machine which is not an ideal solution.

Thank you very much Tom for all your hard work. I can’t wait to get my hands on it.

While testing FOG at my institution, we ran into quite a few problems. Many of them turned out to be relatively simple such as the dhcp server not running. Others were not as obvious, such as those related to NFS. This community, in particular Tom Elliot, were extremely helpful. Therefore I have written down everything I learned during install and included it as an attachment. Please note that this guide is not comprehensive and primarily concerns issues during set up and testing as my institution has not gone to production yet due to time constraints. Feel free to add to it or suggest additions. My only request is that you include an attribution to the original author (myself) if you choose to share it. Also note that I am relatively new to FOG and IT in general and do not claim an expert level of knowledge of either.

[url=“/_imported_xf_attachments/0/564_Troubleshooting FOG.txt?:”]Troubleshooting FOG.txt[/url]

I look forward to using the new version in the future. It sounds like it will be vastly superior to .32.

The problems with my drive are largely due to the fact that it’s an advanced format drive. Even the Windows 8 recovery partition won’t work because it was created on a non-AFD disk. Also my laptop is 64-bit but my desktop is 32-bit so I can’t simply create an install disk from the windows 8 installer. Ugh!

FOG, however, has performed very well. This little adventure has helped me test out version .33b so when we do upgrade I the server at work I know what to expect. At present my plan is to wait until it’s finalized. Since we have about four spare computers (and only need about that many images) at work recreating reference images is not much of an issue. My main concern is for the FOG database since rebuilding it would require going around to the public computers. Is it possible to copy the database, store it somewhere, and then put it back on the server when version .33 is installed? Or is the best way to upgrade simply to have two servers? Note that we do not have any FOG server as of yet, although I do not want our big Windows 7 roll out to be dependent on software which is still in Beta.

Ah ok. So on an ordinary day speeds will be comparable to what .32 can do? My initial concern was that partclone was slower than partimage.

Thank you for your help, but it looks like my hard drive is too far gone to be copied again. Probably I should not have deleted the old image. But I did get a chance to try out .33b without messing with one of the work computers.

Well partclone failed with the error “this disk has bad sectors”. That was on the first partition and the rest would not image at all. CHKDSK seems to have done nothing. Unless anyone has any other ideas this is probably the end of the line for this solution since I deleted the other image owing to my server not having enough space for both. Fortunately there was nothing on my laptop which was not elsewhere.

One question though. Partclone seemed to think my old hard drive was completely full when it wasn’t. Also it went extremely slowly before failing. Was that a bug or simply a function of the way the program operates?

Changing the OS ID to Windows 8 for the image allowed me to boot into the menu. I like that the password is the same as for the web interface. And the new FOG menu is a little better than the old one in my opinion. But as you said, Tom, the image download did not work so over the weekend I will re-image my old hard drive and attempt this again.

Ah that worked. Out of curiosity why does including the WWW produce an error?

I will run chkdsk again just to be sure. The last time it did not seem to do much but it’s best to be cautious where images are concerned. Also will it help to run the FOG installer on your website on my server or is it the same as the one I have? I noticed that different builds seem to have been released over the last few months and want to make sure mine is the one which will function best.

There is either something wrong with your site or my computer because when I type in this: [url]https://www.mastacontrola.com/[/url] it says the site is unavailable. I’ve tried in Firefox Chrome, and IE both at home and at work. Now I’d noticed earlier that Chrome did not like your SSL certificate so perhaps that is the issue?

I will check the image later and see if I can set the type there. However it sounds like the best course of action for both of use might be for me to pop the old hard drive back in (it still boots) and reimage it). My only concern is that if I do so, will there be any issues with corrupted files or errors being replicated between drives? I was getting a lot of event ID 153s before purchasing a new drive.

I’m starting to think I’m cursed. A few weeks ago I’d installed FOG on my home server in order to test out a fresh install. Well it worked and I was able to upload an image of my laptop. Following that, I began using my laptop more for work. Within a few days (and not a month after the warranty expired!) the hard drive began to fail. It was a Seagate Momentus which I replaced with a Western Digital Black of the 2.5 inch variety and the same size as my old one.

Here’s where the trouble began. The new unit is an “Advanced Format Drive”. It didn’t take me long to figure out those are not compatible with version .32 so I took the plunge and tried out .33b. The build I downloaded was the one linked from the first page of the “Latest on Fog .33b” thread; for some reason I could not access mastacontrola.com. Now the upgrade was fairly painless and I like the new log in screen. And of course upon booting it went straight into iPXE. Then it stopped and said “Invalid OS ID (0)” and rebooted. At the time my laptop was set to Legacy BIOS. I tried setting it to UEFI, but Secure Boot wouldn’t allow me to PXE boot and I can’t seem to turn it off.

The laptop is a Gateway NE56R34u bought around Christmas 2012. It runs Windows 8 (not 8.1). Now when I first uploaded the image I had to set the OS to be Windows 7. For some reason FOG would not accept Windows Other as an OS ID and there was no option for Windows 8. However after upgrading to .33b I can’t seem to find a place to change the OS using the web management console. The image is single disk, multipartition and the server OS is Debian 7. Is there any hope for me to get the image off the server?

Type whereis nfs-common. I have a Debian system, but that should work on Ubuntu Server. Also there should be a file in the /etc/init.d directory as that is where start up scripts are stored. If that command returns nothing than the service is not installed. You can try doing so manually by using apt-get install nfs-common.

is nfs-common and nfs-kernel-server running? If so try going to /etc/init.d and listing the contents. You should see two files named nfs-common and nfs-kernel-server. I had a problem where those files had been renamed by the installer for some bizarre reason which caused issues with image upload similar to the ones you experienced.

What sort of code change are we talking about? The feature would be nice, but is not critical.

In regards to the test machine at work, renaming the services corrected the issue. I was able to start the imaging process. Unfortunately I could not finish because it is necessary to repartition the virtual hard drive to make more space which might require some doing. I have but two questions:
1. Why do active tasks always display as “queued” until finished?
2. For some reason pressing * does not cancel an image upload in progress.

A fresh install did the trick. I am in the process of imaging my desktop PC. For some reason it would only work if I set the OS to be windows 7 (it runs 8.1) and multiple partitions. However it is currently working. The only problem is my laptop refuses to connect to the internet which has forced me to write this from a cellphone. But that is a temporary problem. Over the next two days I will recreate the fog server in a virtual machine on my laptop in case renaming the NFS services does not help.

Hmmm maybe I’ll give it a shot. I just can’t stop thinking about this but don’t want to go into work on a Saturday.

Yes, that’s why I chose to put it there. It’s not being used for anything else, but is already configured so it was just a matter of downloading and installing FOG. Of course there is a firewall and one of these new Motorola Surfboard modem/router combo deals on the network which will make any PXE booting attempt a pain. So I’ll still create the second VM just in case and rename those files come Tuesday.

A thought. Could the names of the NFS services be the root cause of all of this nonsense? The proper terms for my fresh install were nfs-common and nfs-kernel-server as opposed to nfs-common.dpkg-new and nfs-kernel-server.dpkg-new. Portmapper is running, mountd is running, there is no firewall, the config files seem fine. There is no other differences I can spot between my home server install and the one at work.

Well even Windows programs leave pieces of themselves behind. FOG runs in a virtual machine so I can delete and recreate without much difficulty. I made that decision for this very reason. Part of the issue here is also that I didn’t make a copy of the VM like I should have.

An uninstall script would make a lot of sense for a future release. The effect may be mostly psychological, but it helps to know I can get rid of a program by clicking a file and running a command or two. Also to be perfectly honest after weeks of work I want something guaranteed to be effective. No offense, but I feel a clean slate is badly needed right now and the delete key has yet to fail me :p. Also there is a soft deadline to all of this. The library must go to Windows 7 by April which really means Spring Break (Mid-March) since there will be no other time before then when the library will be nearly empty. So I have to figure all of this out and by then. Except the Dean wants to meet in a week or two and I need something to show him.